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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Rust, by Edgar Wallace
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Green Rust
+
+Author: Edgar Wallace
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24929]
+[Last Updated: September 10, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN RUST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN RUST
+
+BY
+
+EDGAR WALLACE
+
+WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON AND MELBOURNE
+
+
+MADE IN ENGLAND
+
+Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN RUST
+
+
+_Novels by_
+EDGAR WALLACE
+
+_published by_
+WARD, LOCK AND CO., LTD.
+
+_The "Sanders" Stories_
+
+SANDERS OF THE RIVER
+BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER
+BONES
+LIEUTENANT BONES
+SANDI, THE KING-MAKER
+THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER
+THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE
+
+_Mystery Stories_
+
+THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
+THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
+BLUE HAND
+MR. JUSTICE MAXELL
+THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA
+THE GREEN RUST
+THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG
+THE SECRET HOUSE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAP.                                     PAGE
+
+     I THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN         7
+    II THE DRUNKEN MR. BEALE                 14
+   III PUNSONBY'S DISCHARGE AN EMPLOYEE      24
+    IV THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE       35
+     V THE MAN WITH THE BIG HEAD             43
+    VI MR. SCOBBS OF RED HORSE VALLEY        50
+   VII PLAIN WORDS FROM MR. BEALE            58
+  VIII THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE       67
+    IX A CRIME AGAINST THE WORLD             74
+     X A FRUITLESS SEARCH                    85
+    XI THE HOUSE NEAR STAINES                93
+   XII INTRODUCING PARSON HOMO              102
+  XIII AT DEANS FOLLY                       109
+   XIV MR. BEALE SUGGESTS MARRIAGE          116
+    XV THE GOOD HERR STARDT                 124
+   XVI THE PAWN TICKET                      132
+  XVII THE JEW OF CRACOW                    139
+ XVIII BRIDGERS BREAKS LOOSE                148
+   XIX OLIVA IS WILLING                     156
+    XX THE MARRIAGE                         163
+   XXI BEALE SEES WHITE                     169
+  XXII HILDA GLAUM LEADS THE WAY            177
+ XXIII AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT                 185
+  XXIV THE GREEN RUST FACTORY               192
+   XXV THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH            198
+  XXVI THE SECRET OF THE GREEN RUST         204
+ XXVII A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD         212
+XXVIII THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM             219
+  XXIX THE LOST CODE                        227
+   XXX THE WATCH                            233
+  XXXI A CORNCHANDLER'S BILL                240
+ XXXII THE END OF VAN HEERDEN               244
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN
+
+
+"I don't know whether there's a law that stops my doing this, Jim; but
+if there is, you've got to get round it. You're a lawyer and you know
+the game. You're my pal and the best pal I've had, Jim, and you'll do it
+for me."
+
+The dying man looked up into the old eyes that were watching him with
+such compassion and read their acquiescence.
+
+No greater difference could be imagined than existed between the man on
+the bed and the slim neat figure who sat by his side. John Millinborn,
+broad-shouldered, big-featured, a veritable giant in frame and even in
+his last days suggesting the enormous strength which had been his in his
+prime, had been an outdoor man, a man of large voice and large capable
+hands; James Kitson had been a student from his youth up and had spent
+his manhood in musty offices, stuffy courts, surrounded by crackling
+briefs and calf-bound law-books.
+
+Yet, between these two men, the millionaire ship-builder and the
+successful solicitor, utterly different in their tastes and their modes
+of life, was a friendship deep and true. Strange that death should take
+the strong and leave the weak; so thought James Kitson as he watched his
+friend.
+
+"I'll do what can be done, John. You leave a great responsibility upon
+the girl--a million and a half of money."
+
+The sick man nodded.
+
+"I get rid of a greater one, Jim. When my father died he left a hundred
+thousand between us, my sister and I. I've turned my share into a
+million, but that is by the way. Because she was a fairly rich girl and
+a wilful girl, Jim, she broke her heart. Because they knew she had the
+money the worst men were attracted to her--and she chose the worst of
+the worst!"
+
+He stopped speaking to get his breath.
+
+"She married a plausible villain who ruined her--spent every sou and
+left her with a mountain of debt and a month-old baby. Poor Grace died
+and he married again. I tried to get the baby, but he held it as a
+hostage. I could never trace the child after it was two years old. It
+was only a month ago I learnt the reason. The man was an international
+swindler and was wanted by the police. He was arrested in Paris and
+charged in his true name--the name he had married in was false. When he
+came out of prison he took his own name--and of course the child's name
+changed, too."
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+"You want me to----?"
+
+"Get the will proved and begin your search for Oliva Prédeaux. There is
+no such person. The girl's name you know, and I have told you where she
+is living. You'll find nobody who knows Oliva Prédeaux--her father
+disappeared when she was six--he's probably dead, and her stepmother
+brought her up without knowing her relationship to me--then she died and
+the girl has been working ever since she was fifteen."
+
+"She is not to be found?"
+
+"Until she is married. Watch her, Jim, spend all the money you
+wish--don't influence her unless you see she is getting the wrong kind
+of man...."
+
+His voice, which had grown to something of the old strength, suddenly
+dropped and the great head rolled sideways on the pillow.
+
+Kitson rose and crossed to the door. It opened upon a spacious
+sitting-room, through the big open windows of which could be seen the
+broad acres of the Sussex Weald.
+
+A man was sitting in the window-seat, chin in hand, looking across to
+the chequered fields on the slope of the downs. He was a man of thirty,
+with a pointed beard, and he rose as the lawyer stepped quickly into the
+room.
+
+"Anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+"I think he has fainted--will you go to him, doctor?"
+
+The young man passed swiftly and noiselessly to the bedside and made a
+brief examination. From a shelf near the head of the bed he took a
+hypodermic syringe and filled it from a small bottle. Baring the
+patient's side he slowly injected the drug. He stood for a moment
+looking down at the unconscious man, then came back to the big hall
+where James Kitson was waiting.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"It is difficult to form a judgment," he said quietly, "his heart is all
+gone to pieces. Has he a family doctor?"
+
+"Not so far as I know--he hated doctors, and has never been ill in his
+life. I wonder he tolerated you."
+
+Dr. van Heerden smiled.
+
+"He couldn't help himself. He was taken ill in the train on the way to
+this place and I happened to be a fellow-passenger. He asked me to bring
+him here and I have been here ever since. It is strange," he added,
+"that so rich a man as Mr. Millinborn had no servant travelling with him
+and should live practically alone in this--well, it is little better
+than a cottage."
+
+Despite his anxiety, James Kitson smiled.
+
+"He is the type of man who hates ostentation. I doubt if he has ever
+spent a thousand a year on himself all his life--do you think it is wise
+to leave him?"
+
+The doctor spread out his hands.
+
+"I can do nothing. He refused to allow me to send for a specialist and I
+think he was right. Nothing can be done for him. Still----"
+
+He walked back to the bedside, and the lawyer came behind him. John
+Millinborn seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, and after an examination by
+the doctor the two men walked back to the sitting-room.
+
+"The excitement has been rather much for him. I suppose he has been
+making his will?"
+
+"Yes," said Kitson shortly.
+
+"I gathered as much when I saw you bring the gardener and the cook in to
+witness a document," said Dr. van Heerden.
+
+He tapped his teeth with the tip of his fingers--a nervous trick of his.
+
+"I wish I had some strychnine," he said suddenly. "I ought to have some
+by me--in case."
+
+"Can't you send a servant--or I'll go," said Kitson. "Is it procurable
+in the village?"
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"I don't want you to go," he demurred. "I have sent the car to
+Eastbourne to get a few things I cannot buy here. It's a stiff walk to
+the village and yet I doubt whether the chemist would supply the
+quantity I require to a servant, even with my prescription--you see," he
+smiled, "I am a stranger here."
+
+"I'll go with pleasure--the walk will do me good," said the lawyer
+energetically. "If there is anything we can do to prolong my poor
+friend's life----"
+
+The doctor sat at the table and wrote his prescription and handed it to
+the other with an apology.
+
+Hill Lodge, John Millinborn's big cottage, stood on the crest of a hill,
+and the way to the village was steep and long, for Alfronston lay nearly
+a mile away. Half-way down the slope the path ran through a plantation
+of young ash. Here John Millinborn had preserved a few pheasants in the
+early days of his occupancy of the Lodge on the hill. As Kitson entered
+one side of the plantation he heard a rustling noise, as though somebody
+were moving through the undergrowth. It was too heavy a noise for a
+bolting rabbit or a startled bird to make, and he peered into the thick
+foliage. He was a little nearsighted, and at first he did not see the
+cause of the commotion. Then:
+
+"I suppose I'm trespassing," said a husky voice, and a man stepped out
+toward him.
+
+The stranger carried himself with a certain jauntiness, and he had need
+of what assistance artifice could lend him, for he was singularly
+unprepossessing. He was a man who might as well have been sixty as
+fifty. His clothes soiled, torn and greasy, were of good cut. The shirt
+was filthy, but it was attached to a frayed collar, and the crumpled
+cravat was ornamented with a cameo pin.
+
+But it was the face which attracted Kitson's attention. There was
+something inherently evil in that puffed face, in the dull eyes that
+blinked under the thick black eyebrows. The lips, full and loose, parted
+in a smile as the lawyer stepped back to avoid contact with the
+unsavoury visitor.
+
+"I suppose I'm trespassing--good gad! Me trespassing--funny, very
+funny!" He indulged in a hoarse wheezy laugh and broke suddenly into a
+torrent of the foulest language that this hardened lawyer had ever
+heard.
+
+"Pardon, pardon," he said, stopping as suddenly. "Man of the world, eh?
+You'll understand that when a gentleman has grievances...." He fumbled
+in his waistcoat-pocket and found a black-rimmed monocle and inserted it
+in his eye. There was an obscenity in the appearance of this foul wreck
+of a man which made the lawyer feel physically sick.
+
+"Trespassing, by gad!" He went back to his first conceit and his voice
+rasped with malignity. "Gad! If I had my way with people! I'd slit their
+throats, I would, sir. I'd stick pins in their eyes--red-hot pins. I'd
+boil them alive----"
+
+Hitherto the lawyer had not spoken, but now his repulsion got the better
+of his usually equable temper.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he asked sternly. "You're on private
+property--take your beastliness elsewhere."
+
+The man glared at him and laughed.
+
+"Trespassing!" he sneered. "Trespassing! Very good--your servant, sir!"
+
+He swept his derby hat from his head (the lawyer saw that he was bald),
+and turning, strutted back through the plantation the way he had come.
+It was not the way out and Kitson was half-inclined to follow and see
+the man off the estate. Then he remembered the urgency of his errand
+and continued his journey to the village. On his way back he looked
+about, but there was no trace of the unpleasant intruder. Who was he? he
+wondered. Some broken derelict with nothing but the memory of former
+vain splendours and the rags of old fineries, nursing a dear hatred for
+some more fortunate fellow.
+
+Nearly an hour had passed before he again panted up to the levelled
+shelf on which the cottage stood.
+
+The doctor was sitting at the window as Kitson passed.
+
+"How is he?"
+
+"About the same. He had one paroxysm. Is that the strychnine? I can't
+tell you how much obliged I am to you."
+
+He took the small packet and placed it on the window-ledge and Mr.
+Kitson passed into the house.
+
+"Honestly, doctor, what do you think of his chance?" he asked.
+
+Dr. van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Honestly, I do not think he will recover consciousness."
+
+"Heavens!"
+
+The lawyer was shocked. The tragic suddenness of it all stunned him. He
+had thought vaguely that days, even weeks, might pass before the end
+came.
+
+"Not recover consciousness?" he repeated in a whisper.
+
+Instinctively he was drawn to the room where his friend lay and the
+doctor followed him.
+
+John Millinborn lay on his back, his eyes closed, his face a ghastly
+grey. His big hands were clutching at his throat, his shirt was torn
+open at the breast. The two windows, one at each end of the room, were
+wide, and a gentle breeze blew the casement curtains. The lawyer
+stooped, his eyes moist, and laid his hand upon the burning forehead.
+
+"John, John," he murmured, and turned away, blinded with tears.
+
+He wiped his face with a pocket-handkerchief and walked to the window,
+staring out at the serene loveliness of the scene. Over the weald a
+great aeroplane droned to the sea. The green downs were dappled white
+with grazing flocks, and beneath the windows the ordered beds blazed
+and flamed with flowers, crimson and gold and white.
+
+As he stood there the man he had met in the plantation came to his mind
+and he was half-inclined to speak to the doctor of the incident. But he
+was in no mood for the description and the speculation which would
+follow. Restlessly he paced into the bedroom. The sick man had not moved
+and again the lawyer returned. He thought of the girl, that girl whose
+name and relationship with John Millinborn he alone knew. What use would
+she make of the millions which, all unknown to her, she would soon
+inherit? What----
+
+"Jim, Jim!"
+
+He turned swiftly.
+
+It was John Millinborn's voice.
+
+"Quick--come...."
+
+The doctor had leapt into the room and made his way to the bed.
+
+Millinborn was sitting up, and as the lawyer moved swiftly in the
+doctor's tracks he saw his wide eyes staring.
+
+"Jim, he has...."
+
+His head dropped forward on his breast and the doctor lowered him slowly
+to the pillow.
+
+"What is it, John? Speak to me, old man...."
+
+"I'm afraid there is nothing to be done," said the doctor as he drew up
+the bedclothes.
+
+"Is he dead?" whispered the lawyer fearfully.
+
+"No--but----"
+
+He beckoned the other into the big room and, after a glance at the
+motionless figure, Kitson followed.
+
+"There's something very strange--who is that?"
+
+He pointed through the open window at the clumsy figure of a man who was
+blundering wildly down the slope which led to the plantation.
+
+Kitson recognized the man immediately. It was the uninvited visitor whom
+he had met in the plantation. But there was something in the haste of
+the shabby man, a hint of terror in the wide-thrown arms, that made the
+lawyer forget his tragic environment.
+
+"Where has he been?" he asked.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+The doctor's face was white and drawn as though he, too, sensed some
+horror in that frantic flight.
+
+Kitson walked back to the room where the dying man lay, but was frozen
+stiff upon the threshold.
+
+"Doctor--doctor!"
+
+The doctor followed the eyes of the other. Something was dripping from
+the bed to the floor--something red and horrible. Kitson set his teeth
+and, stepping to the bedside, pulled down the covers.
+
+He stepped back with a cry, for from the side of John Millinborn
+protruded the ivory handle of a knife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE DRUNKEN MR. BEALE
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden's surgery occupied one of the four shops which formed
+the ground floor of the Krooman Chambers. This edifice had been erected
+by a wealthy philanthropist to provide small model flats for the
+professional classes who needed limited accommodation and a good address
+(they were in the vicinity of Oxford Street) at a moderate rental. Like
+many philanthropists, the owner had wearied of his hobby and had sold
+the block to a syndicate, whose management on more occasions than one
+had been the subject of police inquiry.
+
+They had then fallen into the hands of an intelligent woman, who had
+turned out the undesirable tenants, furnished the flats plainly, but
+comfortably, and had let them to tenants who might be described as
+solvent, but honest. Krooman Chambers had gradually rehabilitated itself
+in the eyes of the neighbourhood.
+
+Dr. van Heerden had had his surgery in the building for six years.
+During the war he was temporarily under suspicion for sympathies with
+the enemy, but no proof was adduced of his enmity and, though he had
+undoubtedly been born on the wrong side of the Border at Cranenburg,
+which is the Prussian frontier station on the Rotterdam-Cologne line,
+his name was undoubtedly van Heerden, which was Dutch. Change the "van"
+to "von," said the carping critics, and he was a Hun, and undoubtedly
+Germany was full of von Heerens and von Heerdens.
+
+The doctor lived down criticism, lived down suspicion, and got together
+a remunerative practice. He had the largest flat in the building, one
+room of which was fitted up as a laboratory, for he had a passion for
+research. The mysterious murder of John Millinborn had given him a
+certain advertisement which had not been without its advantages. The
+fact that he had been in attendance on the millionaire had brought him a
+larger fame.
+
+His theories as to how the murder had been committed by some one who had
+got through the open window whilst the two men were out of the room had
+been generally accepted, for the police had found footmarks on the
+flowerbeds, over which the murderer must have passed. They had not,
+however, traced the seedy-looking personage whom Mr. Kitson had seen.
+This person had disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived.
+
+Three months after the murder the doctor stood on the steps of the broad
+entrance-hall which led to the flats, watching the stream of pedestrians
+passing. It was six o'clock in the evening and the streets were alive
+with shop-girls and workers on their way home from business.
+
+He smoked a cigarette and his interest was, perhaps, more apparent than
+real. He had attended his last surgery case and the door of the "shop,"
+with its sage-green windows, had been locked for the night.
+
+His eyes wandered idly to the Oxford Street end of the thoroughfare, and
+suddenly he started. A girl was walking toward him. At this hour there
+was very little wheeled traffic, for Lattice Street is almost a
+cul-de-sac, and she had taken the middle of the road. She was dressed
+with that effective neatness which brings the wealthy and the work-girl
+to a baffling level, in a blue serge costume of severe cut; a plain
+white linen coat-collar and a small hat, which covered, but did not
+hide, a mass of hair which, against the slanting sunlight at her back,
+lent the illusion of a golden nimbus about her head.
+
+The eyes were deep-set and wise with the wisdom which is found alike in
+those who have suffered and those who have watched suffering. The nose
+was straight, the lips scarlet and full. You might catalogue every
+feature of Oliva Cresswell and yet arrive at no satisfactory explanation
+for her charm.
+
+Not in the clear ivory pallor of complexion did her charm lie. Nor in
+the trim figure with its promising lines, nor in the poise of head nor
+pride of carriage, nor in the ready laughter that came to those quiet
+eyes. In no one particular quality of attraction did she excel. Rather
+was her charm the charm of the perfect agglomeration of all those
+characteristics which men find alluring and challenging.
+
+She raised her hand with a free unaffected gesture, and greeted the
+doctor with a flashing smile.
+
+"Well, Miss Cresswell, I haven't seen you for quite a long time."
+
+"Two days," she said solemnly, "but I suppose doctors who know all the
+secrets of nature have some very special drug to sustain them in trials
+like that."
+
+"Don't be unkind to the profession," he laughed, "and don't be
+sarcastic, to one so young. By the way, I have never asked you did you
+get your flat changed?"
+
+She shook her head and frowned.
+
+"Miss Millit says she cannot move me."
+
+"Abominable," he said, and was annoyed. "Did you tell her about Beale?"
+
+She nodded vigorously.
+
+"I said to her, says I," she had a trick of mimicry and dropped easily
+into the southern English accent, "'Miss Millit, are you aware that the
+gentleman who lives opposite to me has been, to my knowledge,
+consistently drunk for two months--ever since he came to live at
+Kroomans?' 'Does he annoy you?' says she. 'Drunken people always annoy
+me,' says I. 'Mr. Beale arrives home every evening in a condition which
+I can only describe as deplorable.'"
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+The girl made a little grimace and became serious.
+
+"She said if he did not speak to me or interfere with me or frighten me
+it was none of my business, or something to that effect." She laughed
+helplessly. "Really, the flat is so wonderful and so cheap that one
+cannot afford to get out--you don't know how grateful I am to you,
+doctor, for having got diggings here at all--Miss Millit isn't keen on
+single young ladies."
+
+She sniffed and laughed.
+
+"Why do you laugh?" he asked.
+
+"I was thinking how queerly you and I met."
+
+The circumstances of their meeting had indeed been curious. She was
+employed as a cashier at one of the great West End stores. He had made
+some sort of purchase and made payment in a five-pound note which had
+proved to be counterfeit. It was a sad moment for the girl when the
+forgery was discovered, for she had to make up the loss from her own
+pocket and that was no small matter.
+
+Then the miracle had happened. The doctor had arrived full of apologies,
+had presented his card and explained. The note was one which he had been
+keeping as a curiosity. It has been passed on him and was such an
+excellent specimen that he intended having it framed but it had got
+mixed up with his other money.
+
+"You started by being the villain of the piece and ended by being my
+good fairy," she said. "I should never have known there was a vacancy
+here but for you. I should not have been admitted by the proper Miss
+Millit but for the terror of your name."
+
+She dropped her little hand lightly on his shoulder. It was a gesture of
+good-comradeship.
+
+She half-turned to go when an angry exclamation held her.
+
+"What is it? Oh, I see--No. 4!"
+
+She drew a little closer to the doctor's side and watched with narrowing
+lids the approaching figure.
+
+"Why does he do it--oh, why does he do it?" she demanded impatiently.
+"How can a man be so weak, so wretchedly weak? There's nothing justifies
+that!"
+
+"That" was apparently trying to walk the opposite kerb as though it
+were a tight-rope. Save for a certain disorder of attire, a protruding
+necktie and a muddy hat, he was respectable enough. He was young and,
+under other conditions, passably good looking. But with his fair hair
+streaming over his forehead and his hat at the back of his head he
+lacked fascination. His attempt, aided by a walking-stick used as a
+balancing-pole, to keep his equilibrium on six inches of kerbing, might
+have been funny to a less sensitive soul than Oliva's.
+
+He slipped, recovered himself with a little whoop, slipped again, and
+finally gave up the attempt, crossing the road to his home.
+
+He recognized the doctor with a flourish of his hat.
+
+"Glorious weather, my Escu-escu-lapius," he said, with a little slur in
+his voice but a merry smile in his eye; "simply wonderful weather for
+bacteria trypanosomes (got it) an' all the jolly little microbes."
+
+He smiled at the doctor blandly, ignoring the other's significant glance
+at the girl, who had drawn back so that she might not find herself
+included in the conversation.
+
+"I'm goin' to leave you, doctor," he went on, "goin' top floor, away
+from the evil smells of science an' fatal lure of beauty. Top floor
+jolly stiff climb when a fellow's all lit up like the Hotel
+Doodledum--per arduis ad astra--through labour to the stars--fine motto.
+Flying Corps' motto--my motto. Goo' night!"
+
+Off came his hat again and he staggered up the broad stone stairs and
+disappeared round a turn. Later they heard his door slam.
+
+"Awful--and yet----"
+
+"And yet?" echoed the doctor.
+
+"I thought he was funny. I nearly laughed. But how terrible! He's so
+young and he has had a decent education."
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+Presently she took leave of the doctor and made her way upstairs. Three
+doors opened from the landing. Numbers 4, 6 and 8.
+
+She glanced a little apprehensively at No. 4 as she passed, but there
+was no sound or sign of the reveller, and she passed into No. 6 and
+closed the door.
+
+The accommodation consisted of two rooms, a bed-and a sitting-room, a
+bath-room and a tiny kitchen. The rent was remarkably low, less than a
+quarter of her weekly earnings, and she managed to live comfortably.
+
+She lit the gas-stove and put on the kettle and began to lay the table.
+There was a "tin of something" in the diminutive pantry, a small loaf
+and a jug of milk, a tomato or two and a bottle of dressing--the high
+tea to which she sat down (a little flushed of the face and quite happy)
+was seasoned with content. She thought of the doctor and accounted
+herself lucky to have so good a friend. He was so sensible, there was no
+"nonsense" about him. He never tried to hold her hand as the stupid
+buyers did, nor make clumsy attempts to kiss her as one of the partners
+had done.
+
+The doctor was different from them all. She could not imagine him
+sitting by the side of a girl in a bus pressing her foot with his, or
+accosting her in the street with a "Haven't we met before?"
+
+She ate her meal slowly, reading the evening newspaper and dreaming at
+intervals. It was dusk when she had finished and she switched on the
+electric light. There was a shilling-in-the-slot meter in the bath-room
+that acted eccentrically. Sometimes one shilling would supply light for
+a week, at other times after two days the lights would flicker
+spasmodically and expire.
+
+She remembered that it was a perilous long time since she had bribed the
+meter and searched her purse for a shilling. She found that she had
+half-crowns, florins and sixpences, but she had no shillings. This, of
+course, is the chronic condition of all users of the slot-meters, and
+she accepted the discovery with the calm of the fatalist. She
+considered. Should she go out and get change from the obliging
+tobacconist at the corner or should she take a chance?
+
+"If I don't go out you will," she said addressing the light, and it
+winked ominously.
+
+She opened the door and stepped into the passage, and as she did so the
+lights behind her went out. There was one small lamp on the landing, a
+plutocratic affair independent of shilling meters. She closed the door
+behind her and walked to the head of the stairs. As she passed No. 4,
+she noted the door was ajar and she stopped. She did not wish to risk
+meeting the drunkard, and she turned back.
+
+Then she remembered the doctor, he lived in No. 8. Usually when he was
+at home there was a light in his hall which showed through the fanlight.
+Now, however, the place was in darkness. She saw a card on the door and
+walking closer she read it in the dim light.
+
+
+                +---------------------------------+
+                |                                 |
+                |                                 |
+                |        BACK AT 12. WAIT.        |
+                |                                 |
+                |                                 |
+                +---------------------------------+
+
+
+He was out and was evidently expecting a caller. So there was nothing
+for it but to risk meeting the exuberant Mr. Beale. She flew down the
+stairs and gained the street with a feeling of relief.
+
+The obliging tobacconist, who was loquacious on the subject of Germans
+and Germany, detained her until her stock of patience was exhausted; but
+at last she made her escape. Half-way across the street she saw the
+figure of a man standing in the dark hallway of the chambers, and her
+heart sank.
+
+"Matilda, you're a fool," she said to herself.
+
+Her name was not Matilda, but in moments of self-depreciation she was
+wont to address herself as such.
+
+She walked boldly up to the entrance and passed through. The man she saw
+out of the corner of her eye but did not recognize. He seemed as little
+desirous of attracting attention as she. She thought he was rather stout
+and short, but as to this she was not sure. She raced up the stairs and
+turned on the landing to her room. The door of No. 4 was still ajar--but
+what was much more important, so was her door. There was no doubt about
+it, between the edge of the door and the jamb there was a good two
+inches of space, and she distinctly remembered not only closing it, but
+also pushing it to make sure that it was fast. What should she do? To
+her annoyance she felt a cold little feeling inside her and her hands
+were trembling.
+
+"If the lights were only on I'd take the risk," she thought; but the
+lights were not on and it was necessary to pass into the dark interior
+and into a darker bath-room--a room which is notoriously adaptable for
+murder--before she could reach the meter.
+
+"Rubbish, Matilda!" she scoffed quaveringly, "go in, you frightened
+little rabbit--you forgot to shut the door, that's all."
+
+She pushed the door open and with a shiver stepped inside.
+
+Then a sound made her stop dead. It was a shuffle and a creak such as a
+dog might make if he brushed against the chair.
+
+"Who's there?" she demanded.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+She took one step forward and then something reached out at her. A big
+hand gripped her by the sleeve of her blouse and she heard a deep
+breathing.
+
+She bit her lips to stop the scream that arose, and with a wrench tore
+herself free, leaving a portion of a sleeve in the hands of the unknown.
+
+She darted backward, slamming the door behind her. In two flying strides
+she was at the door of No. 4, hammering with both her fists.
+
+"Drunk or sober he is a man! Drunk or sober he is a man!" she muttered
+incoherently.
+
+Only twice she beat upon the door when it opened suddenly and Mr. Beale
+stood in the doorway.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+She hardly noticed his tone.
+
+"A man--a man, in my flat," she gasped, and showed her torn sleeve, "a
+man...!"
+
+He pushed her aside and made for the door.
+
+"The key?" he said quickly.
+
+With trembling fingers she extracted it from her pocket.
+
+"One moment."
+
+He disappeared into his own flat and presently came out holding an
+electric torch. He snapped back the lock, put the key in his pocket and
+then, to her amazement, he slipped a short-barrelled revolver from his
+hip-pocket.
+
+With his foot he pushed open the door and she watched him vanish into
+the gloomy interior.
+
+Presently came his voice, sharp and menacing:
+
+"Hands up!"
+
+A voice jabbered something excitedly and then she heard Mr. Beale speak.
+
+"Is your light working?--you can come in, I have him in the
+dining-room."
+
+She stepped into the bath-room, the shilling dropped through the
+aperture, the screw grated as she turned it and the lights sprang to
+life.
+
+In one corner of the room was a man, a white-faced, sickly looking man
+with a head too big for his body. His hands were above his head, his
+lower lip trembled in terror.
+
+Mr. Beale was searching him with thoroughness and rapidity.
+
+"No gun, all right, put your hands down. Now turn out your pockets."
+
+The man said something in a language which the girl could not
+understand, and Mr. Beale replied in the same tongue. He put the
+contents, first of one pocket then of the other, upon the table, and the
+girl watched the proceedings with open eyes.
+
+"Hello, what's this?"
+
+Beale picked up a card. Thereon was scribbled a figure which might have
+been 6 or 4.
+
+"I see," said Beale, "now the other pocket--you understand English, my
+friend?"
+
+Stupidly the man obeyed. A leather pocket-case came from an inside
+pocket and this Beale opened.
+
+Therein was a small packet which resembled the familiar wrapper of a
+seidlitz powder. Beale spoke sharply in a language which the girl
+realized was German, and the man shook his head. He said something which
+sounded like "No good," several times.
+
+"I'm going to leave you here alone for awhile," said Beale, "my friend
+and I are going downstairs together--I shall not be long."
+
+They went out of the flat together, the little man with the big head
+protesting, and she heard their footsteps descending the stairs.
+Presently Beale came up alone and walked into the sitting-room. And then
+the strange unaccountable fact dawned on her--he was perfectly sober.
+
+His eyes were clear, his lips firm, and the fair hair whose tendencies
+to bedragglement had emphasized his disgrace was brushed back over his
+head. He looked at her so earnestly that she grew embarrassed.
+
+"Miss Cresswell," he said quietly. "I am going to ask you to do me a
+great favour."
+
+"If it is one that I can grant, you may be sure that I will," she
+smiled, and he nodded.
+
+"I shall not ask you to do anything that is impossible in spite of the
+humorist's view of women," he said. "I merely want you to tell nobody
+about what has happened to-night."
+
+"Nobody?" she looked at him in astonishment. "But the doctor----"
+
+"Not even the doctor," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I ask you
+this as a special favour--word of honour?"
+
+She thought a moment.
+
+"I promise," she said. "I'm to tell nobody about that horrid man from
+whom you so kindly saved me----"
+
+He lifted his head.
+
+"Understand this, Miss Cresswell, please," he said: "I don't want you to
+be under any misapprehension about that 'horrid man'--he was just as
+scared as you, and he would not have harmed you. I have been waiting for
+him all the evening."
+
+"Waiting for him?"
+
+He nodded again.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the doctor's flat," he said calmly, "you see, the doctor and I are
+deadly rivals. We are rival scientists, and I was waiting for the hairy
+man to steal a march on him."
+
+"But, but--how did you get in."
+
+"I had this key," he said holding up a small key, "remember, word of
+honour! The man whom I have just left came up and wasn't certain whether
+he had to go in No. 8, that's the doctor's, or No. 6--_and the one key
+fits both doors!_"
+
+He inserted the key which was in the lock of her door and it turned
+easily.
+
+"And this is what I was waiting for--it was the best the poor devil
+could do."
+
+He lifted the paper package and broke the seals. Unfolding the paper
+carefully he laid it on the table, revealing a teaspoonful of what
+looked like fine green sawdust.
+
+"What is it?" she whispered fearfully.
+
+Somehow she knew that she was in the presence of a big elementary
+danger--something gross and terrible in its primitive force.
+
+"That," said Mr. Beale, choosing his words nicely, "that is a passable
+imitation of the Green Rust, or, as it is to me, the Green Terror."
+
+"The Green Rust? What is the Green Rust--what can it do?" she asked in
+bewilderment.
+
+"I hope we shall never know," he said, and in his clear eyes was a hint
+of terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PUNSONBY'S DISCHARGE AN EMPLOYEE
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell rose with the final despairing buzz of her alarm clock
+and conquered the almost irresistible temptation to close her eyes, just
+to see what it felt like. Her first impression was that she had had no
+sleep all night. She remembered going to bed at one and turning from
+side to side until three. She remembered deciding that the best thing to
+do was to get up, make some tea and watch the sun rise, and that whilst
+she was deciding whether such a step was romantic or just silly, she
+must have gone to sleep.
+
+Still, four hours of slumber is practically no slumber to a healthy girl
+and she swung her pyjama-ed legs over the side of the bed and spent
+quite five minutes in a fatuous admiration of her little white feet.
+With an effort she dragged herself to the bath-room and let the tap run.
+Then she put on the kettle. Half an hour later she was feeling well but
+unenthusiastic.
+
+When she became fully conscious, which was on her way to business, she
+realized she was worried. She had been made a party to a secret without
+her wish--and the drunken Mr. Beale, that youthful profligate, had
+really forced this confidence upon her. Only, and this she recalled with
+a start which sent her chin jerking upward (she was in the bus at the
+time and the conductor, thinking she was signalling him to stop, pulled
+the bell), only Mr. Beale was surprisingly sober and masterful for one
+so weak of character.
+
+Ought she to tell the doctor--Dr. van Heerden, who had been so good a
+friend of hers? It seemed disloyal, it was disloyal, horribly disloyal
+to him, to hide the fact that Mr. Beale had actually been in the
+doctor's room at night.
+
+But was it a coincidence that the same key opened her door and the
+doctor's? If it were so, it was an embarrassing coincidence. She must
+change the locks without delay.
+
+The bus set her down at the corner of Punsonby's great block. Punsonby's
+is one of the most successful and at the same time one of the most
+exclusive dress-houses in London, and Oliva had indeed been fortunate in
+securing her present position, for employment at Punsonby's was almost
+equal to Government employment in its permanency, as it was certainly
+more lucrative in its pay.
+
+As she stepped on to the pavement she glanced up at the big ornate
+clock. She was in good time, she said to herself, and was pushing open
+the big glass door through which employees pass to the various
+departments when a hand touched her gently on the arm.
+
+She turned in surprise to face Mr. Beale, looking particularly smart in
+a well-fitting grey suit, a grey felt hat and a large bunch of violets
+in his buttonhole.
+
+"Excuse me, Miss Cresswell," he said pleasantly, "may I have one word
+with you?"
+
+She looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"I rather wish you had chosen another time and another place, Mr.
+Beale," she said frankly.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I realize it is rather embarrassing," he said, "but unfortunately my
+business cannot wait. I am a business man, you know," he smiled, "in
+spite of my dissolute habits."
+
+She looked at him closely, for she thought she detected a gentle mockery
+behind his words, but he was not smiling now.
+
+"I won't keep you more than two minutes," he went on, "but in that two
+minutes I have a great deal to tell you. I won't bore you with the story
+of my life."
+
+This time she saw the amusement in his eyes and smiled against her will,
+because she was not feeling particularly amused.
+
+"I have a business in the city of London," he said, "and again I would
+ask you to respect my confidence. I am a wheat expert."
+
+"A wheat expert?" she repeated with a puzzled frown.
+
+"It's a queer job, isn't it? but that's what I am. I have a vacancy in
+my office for a confidential secretary. It is a nice office, the pay is
+good, the hours are few and the work is light. I want to know whether
+you will accept the position."
+
+She shook her head, regarding him with a new interest, from which
+suspicion was not altogether absent.
+
+"It is awfully kind of you, Mr. Beale, and adds another to the debts I
+owe you," she said, "but I have no desire to leave Punsonby's. It is
+work I like, and although I am sure you are not interested in my
+private business"--he could have told her that he was very much
+interested in her private business, but he refrained--"I do not mind
+telling you that I am earning a very good salary and I have no intention
+or desire to change my situation."
+
+His eyes twinkled.
+
+"Ah well, that's my misfortune," he said, "there are only two things I
+can say. The first is that if you work for me you will neither be
+distressed nor annoyed by any habits of mine which you may have observed
+and which may perhaps have prejudiced you against me. In the second
+place, I want you to promise me that if you ever leave Punsonby's you
+will give me the first offer of your services."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I think you are very funny, Mr. Beale, but I feel sure that you mean
+what you say, and that you would confine your--er--little eccentricities
+to times outside of business hours. As far as leaving Punsonby's is
+concerned I promise you that I will give you the first offer of my
+invaluable services if ever I leave. And now I am afraid I must run
+away. I am awfully obliged to you for what you did for me last night."
+
+He looked at her steadily in the eye.
+
+"I have no recollection of anything that happened last night," he said,
+"and I should be glad if your memory would suffer the same lapse."
+
+He shook hands with her, lifted his hat and turned abruptly away, and
+she looked after him till the boom of the clock recalled her to the fact
+that the head of the firm of Punsonby was a stickler for punctuality.
+
+She went into the great cloak-room and hung up her coat and hat. As she
+turned to the mirror to straighten her hair she came face to face with a
+tall, dark girl who had been eyeing her thoughtfully.
+
+"Good morning," said Oliva, and there was in her tone more of politeness
+than friendship, for although these two girls had occupied the same
+office for more than a year, there was between them an incompatibility
+which no length of acquaintance could remove.
+
+Hilda Glaum was of Swiss extraction, and something of a mystery. She
+was good looking in a sulky, saturnine way, but her known virtues
+stopped short at her appearance. She neither invited nor gave
+confidence, and in this respect suited Oliva, but unlike Oliva, she made
+no friends, entered into none of the periodical movements amongst the
+girls, was impervious to the attractions of the river in summer and of
+the Proms in winter, neither visited nor received.
+
+"'Morning," replied the girl shortly; then: "Have you been upstairs?"
+
+"No--why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+Oliva mounted to the floor where her little office was. She and Hilda
+dealt with the registered mail, extracted and checked the money that
+came from the post-shoppers and sent on the orders to the various
+departments.
+
+Three sealed bags lay on her desk, and a youth from the postal
+department waited to receive a receipt for them. This she scribbled,
+after comparing the numbers attached to the seals with those inscribed
+on the boy's receipt-book.
+
+For some reason Hilda had not followed her, and she was alone and had
+tumbled the contents of the first bag on to her desk when the managing
+director of Punsonby's made a surprising appearance at the
+glass-panelled door of her office.
+
+He was a large, stout and important-looking man, bald and bearded. He
+enjoyed an episcopal manner, and had a trick of pulling back his head
+when he asked questions, as though he desired to evade the full force of
+the answer.
+
+He stood in the doorway and beckoned her out, and she went without any
+premonition of what was in store for her.
+
+"Ah, Miss Cresswell," he said. "I--ah--am sorry I did not see you before
+you had taken off your coat and hat. Will you come to my office?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. White," said the girl, wondering what had happened.
+
+He led the way with his majestic stride, dangling a pair of pince-nez
+by their cord, as a fastidious person might carry a mouse by its tail,
+and ushered her into his rosewood-panelled office.
+
+"Sit down, sit down, Miss Cresswell," he said, and seating himself at
+his desk he put the tips of his fingers together and looked up to the
+ceiling for inspiration. "I am afraid, Miss Cresswell," he said, "that I
+have--ah--an unpleasant task."
+
+"An unpleasant task, Mr. White?" she said, with a sinking feeling inside
+her.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I have to tell you that Punsonby's no longer require your services."
+
+She rose to her feet, looking down at him open-mouthed with wonder and
+consternation.
+
+"Not require my services?" she said slowly. "Do you mean that I am
+discharged?"
+
+He nodded again.
+
+"In lieu of a month's notice I will give you a cheque for a month's
+salary, plus the unexpired portion of this week's salary."
+
+"But why am I being discharged? Why? Why?"
+
+Mr. White, who had opened his eyes for a moment to watch the effect of
+his lightning stroke, closed them again.
+
+"It is not the practice of Punsonby's to give any reason for dispensing
+with the services of its employees," he said oracularly, "it is
+sufficient that I should tell you that hitherto you have given every
+satisfaction, but for reasons which I am not prepared to discuss we must
+dispense with your services."
+
+Her head was in a whirl. She could not grasp what had happened. For five
+years she had worked in the happiest circumstances in this great store,
+where everybody had been kind to her and where her tasks had been
+congenial. She had never thought of going elsewhere. She regarded
+herself, as did all the better-class employees, as a fixture.
+
+"Do I understand," she asked, "that I am to leave--at once?"
+
+Mr. White nodded. He pushed the cheque across the table and she took it
+up and folded it mechanically.
+
+"And you are not going to tell me why?"
+
+Mr. White shook his head.
+
+"Punsonby's do nothing without a good reason," he said solemnly, feeling
+that whatever happened he must make a good case for Punsonby's, and that
+whoever was to blame for this unhappy incident it was not an august firm
+which paid its fourteen per cent. with monotonous regularity. "We
+lack--ah--definite knowledge to proceed any further in this matter
+than--in fact, than we have proceeded. Definite knowledge" (the girl was
+all the more bewildered by his cumbersome diplomacy) "definite knowledge
+was promised but has not--in fact, has not come to hand. It is all very
+unpleasant--very unpleasant," and he shook his head.
+
+She bowed and turning, walked quickly from the room, passed to the lobby
+where her coat was hung, put on her hat and left Punsonby's for ever.
+
+It was when she had reached the street that, with a shock, she
+remembered Beale's words and she stood stock-still, pinching her lip
+thoughtfully. Had he known? Why had he come that morning, hours before
+he was ordinarily visible--if the common gossip of Krooman Mansions be
+worthy of credence?--and then as though to cap the amazing events of the
+morning she saw him. He was standing on the corner of the street,
+leaning on his cane, smoking a long cigarette through a much longer
+holder, and he seemed wholly absorbed in watching a linesman, perched
+high above the street, repairing a telegraph wire.
+
+She made a step toward him, but stopped. He was so evidently engrossed
+in the acrobatics of the honest workman in mid-air that he could not
+have seen her and she turned swiftly and walked the other way.
+
+She had not reached the end of the block before he was at her side.
+
+"You are going home early, Miss Cresswell," he smiled.
+
+She turned to him.
+
+"Do you know why?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know why--unless----"
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless you have been discharged," he said coolly.
+
+Her brows knit.
+
+"What do you know about my discharge?" she asked.
+
+"Such things are possible," said Mr. Beale.
+
+"Did you know I was going to be discharged?" she asked again.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I didn't exactly know you would be discharged this morning, but I had
+an idea you would be discharged at some time or other. That is why I
+came with my offer."
+
+"Which, of course, I won't accept," she snapped.
+
+"Which, of course, you have accepted," he said quietly. "Believe me, I
+know nothing more than that Punsonby's have been prevailed upon to
+discharge you. What reason induced them to take that step, honestly I
+don't know."
+
+"But why did you think so?"
+
+He was grave of a sudden.
+
+"I just thought so," he said. "I am not going to be mysterious with you
+and I can only tell you that I had reasons to believe that some such
+step would be taken."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders wearily.
+
+"It is quite mysterious enough," she said. "Do you seriously want me to
+work for you?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"You didn't tell me your city address."
+
+"That is why I came back," he said.
+
+"Then you knew I was coming out?"
+
+"I knew you would come out some time in the day."
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you would have waited all day to give me
+your address?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I only mean this," he replied, "that I should have waited all day."
+
+It was a helpless laugh which echoed his.
+
+"My address is 342 Lothbury," he went on, "342. You may begin work this
+afternoon and----" He hesitated.
+
+"And?" she repeated.
+
+"And I think it would be wise if you didn't tell your friend, the
+doctor, that I am employing you."
+
+He was examining his finger-nails attentively as he spoke, and he did
+not meet her eye.
+
+"There are many reasons," he went on. "In the first place, I have
+blotted my copy-book, as they say, in Krooman Mansions, and it might not
+rebound to your credit."
+
+"You should have thought of that before you asked me to come to you,"
+she said.
+
+"I thought of it a great deal," he replied calmly.
+
+There was much in what he said, as the girl recognized. She blamed
+herself for her hasty promise, but somehow the events of the previous
+night had placed him on a different footing, had given him a certain
+indefinable position to which the inebriate Mr. Beale had not aspired.
+
+"I am afraid I am rather bewildered by all the mystery of it," she said,
+"and I don't think I will come to the office to-day. To-morrow morning,
+at what hour?"
+
+"Ten o'clock," he said, "I will be there to explain your duties. Your
+salary will be £5 a week. You will be in charge of the office, to which
+I very seldom go, by the way, and your work will be preparing
+statistical returns of the wheat-crops in all the wheat-fields of the
+world for the last fifty years."
+
+"It sounds thrilling," she said, and a quick smile flashed across his
+face.
+
+"It is much more thrilling than you imagine," were his parting words.
+
+She reached Krooman Mansions just as the doctor was coming out, and he
+looked at her in surprise.
+
+"You are back early!"
+
+Should she tell him? There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had been
+a good friend of hers and she felt sure of his sympathy. It occurred to
+her at that moment that Mr. Beale had been most unsympathetic, and had
+not expressed one word of regret.
+
+"Yes, I've been discharged," she exclaimed.
+
+"Discharged? Impossible!"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"To prove that it is possible it has happened," she said cheerfully.
+
+"My dear girl, this is monstrous! What excuse did they give?"
+
+"None." This was said with a lightness of tone which did not reflect the
+indignation she felt at heart.
+
+"Did they give you no reason?"
+
+"They gave me none. They gave me my month's cheque and just told me to
+go off, and off I came like the well-disciplined wage-earner I am."
+
+"But it is monstrous," he said indignantly. "I will go and see them. I
+know one of the heads of the firm--at least, he is a patient of mine."
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind," she replied firmly. "It really
+doesn't matter."
+
+"What are you going to do? By Jove!" he said suddenly, "what a splendid
+idea! I want a clinical secretary."
+
+The humour of it got the better of her, and she laughed in his face.
+
+"What is the joke?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry, doctor, but you mustn't think I am ungrateful, but I
+am beginning to regard myself as one of the plums in the labour market."
+
+"Have you another position?" he asked quickly.
+
+"I have just accepted one," she said, and he did not disguise his
+disappointment, which might even have been interpreted, were Oliva more
+conceited, into absolute chagrin.
+
+"You are very quick," said he, and his voice had lost some of its
+enthusiasm. "What position have you taken?"
+
+"I am going into an office in the city," she said.
+
+"That will be dull. If you have settled it in your mind, of course, I
+cannot alter your decision, but I would be quite willing to give you £5
+or £6 a week, and the work would be very light."
+
+She held out her hand, and there was a twinkle in her eye.
+
+"London is simply filled with people who want to give me £5 a week for
+work which is very light; really I am awfully grateful to you, doctor."
+
+She felt more cheerful as she mounted the stairs than she thought would
+have been possible had such a position been forecast and had she to
+speculate upon the attitude of mind with which she would meet such a
+misfortune.
+
+Punsonby's, for all the humiliation of her dismissal, seemed fairly
+unimportant. Some day she would discover the circumstances which had
+decided the high gods who presided over the ready-made clothing business
+in their action.
+
+She unlocked the door and passed in, not without a comprehensive and an
+amused glance which took in the sober front doors of her new employer
+and her would-be employer.
+
+"Sarah, your luck's in," she said, as she banged the door--Sarah was the
+approving version of Matilda. "If the wheezy man fires you, be sure
+there'll be a good angel waiting on the doorstep to offer you £20 a week
+for 'phoning the office once a day."
+
+It occurred to her that it would be wise to place on record her protest
+against her summary dismissal, and she went to the little
+bookshelf-writing-table where she kept her writing-material to indite
+the epistle whilst she thought of it. It was one of those little
+fumed-oak contraptions where the desk is formed by a hinged flap which
+serves when not in use to close the desk.
+
+She pulled out the two little supports, inserted the key in the lock,
+but it refused to turn, for the simple reason that it was unlocked. She
+had distinctly remembered that morning locking it after putting away the
+bill which had arrived with the morning post.
+
+She pulled down the flap slowly and stared in amazement at the little
+which it hid. Every pigeon-hole had been ransacked and the contents were
+piled up in a confused heap. The two tiny drawers in which she kept
+stamps and nibs were out and emptied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE
+
+
+She made a rapid survey of the documents. They were unimportant, and
+consisted mainly of letters from the few girl friends she had made
+during her stay at Punsonby's--old theatre programmes, recipes copied
+from newspapers and bunches of snapshots taken on her last summer
+excursion.
+
+She arranged the things in some sort of rough order and made an
+inspection of her bedroom. Here, too, there was evidence that somebody
+had been searching the room. The drawers of her dressing-table were
+open, and though the contents had been little disturbed, it was clear
+that they had been searched. She made another discovery. The window of
+the bedroom was open at the bottom. Usually it was open half-way down
+from the top, and was fastened in that position by a patent catch. This
+precaution was necessary, because the window looked upon a narrow iron
+parapet which ran along the building and communicated with the
+fire-escape. She looked out. Evidently the intruder had both come and
+gone this way, and as evidently her return had disturbed him in his
+inspection, for it was hardly likely he would leave her papers and
+bureau in that state of confusion.
+
+She made a brief inspection of the drawers in the dressing-table, and so
+far as she could see nothing was missing. She went back to the
+writing-bureau, mechanically put away the papers, little
+memorandum-books and letters which had been dragged from their
+pigeon-holes, then resting her elbow on the desk she sat, chin in hand,
+her pretty forehead wrinkled in a frown, recalling the events of the
+morning.
+
+Who had searched her desk? What did they hope to discover? She had no
+illusions that this was the work of a common thief. There was something
+behind all this, something sinister and terrifying.
+
+What association had the search with her summary dismissal and what did
+the pompous Mr. White mean when he talked about definite knowledge?
+Definite knowledge of what? She gave it up with a shrug. She was not as
+much alarmed as disturbed. Life was grating a little, and she resented
+this departure from the smooth course which it had hitherto run. She
+resented the intrusion of Mr. Beale, who was drunk one moment and sober
+the next, who had offices in the city which he did not visit and who
+took such an inordinate interest in her affairs, and she resented him
+all the more because, in some indefinable way, he had shaken her
+faith--no, not shaken her faith, that was too strong a term--he had
+pared the mild romance which Dr. van Heerden's friendship represented.
+
+She got up from the table and paced the room, planning her day. She
+would go out to lunch and indulge in the dissipation of a matinee.
+Perhaps she would stay out to dinner and come back--she shivered
+unconsciously and looked round the room. Somehow she did not look
+forward to an evening spent alone in her flat.
+
+"Matilda, you're getting maudlin," she said, "you are getting romantic,
+too. You are reading too many sensational novels and seeing too many
+sensational films."
+
+She walked briskly into her bedroom, unhooked a suit from the wardrobe
+and laid it on the bed.
+
+At that moment there came a knock at the door. She put down the
+clothes-brush which was in her hand, walked out into the hall, opened
+the door and stepped back. Three men stood in the passage without. Two
+were strangers with that curious official look which the plain-clothes
+policeman can never wholly eradicate from his bearing. The third was Mr.
+White, more pompous and more solemn than ever.
+
+"Miss Cresswell?" asked one of the strangers.
+
+"That is my name."
+
+"May we come inside? I want to see you."
+
+She led the way to her little sitting-room. Mr. White followed in the
+rear.
+
+"Your name is Oliva Cresswell. You were recently employed by Punsonby's,
+Limited, as cashier."
+
+"That is true," she said, wondering what was coming next.
+
+"Certain information was laid against you," said the spokesman, "as a
+result of which you were discharged from the firm this morning?"
+
+She raised her eyebrows in indignant surprise.
+
+"Information laid against me?" she said haughtily. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean, that a charge was made against you that you were converting
+money belonging to the firm to your own use. That was the charge, I
+believe, sir?" He turned to Mr. White.
+
+Mr. White nodded slowly.
+
+"It is a lie. It is an outrageous lie," cried the girl, turning flaming
+eyes upon the stout managing director of Punsonby's. "You know it's a
+lie, Mr. White! Thousands of pounds have passed through my hands and I
+have never--oh, it's cruel."
+
+"If you will only keep calm for a little while, miss," said the man, who
+was not unused to such outbreaks, "I will explain that at the moment of
+your dismissal there was no evidence against you."
+
+"No definite knowledge of your offence," murmured Mr. White.
+
+"And now?" demanded the girl.
+
+"Now we have information, miss, to the effect that three registered
+letters, containing in all the sum of £63----"
+
+"Fourteen and sevenpence," murmured Mr. White.
+
+"Sixty-three pounds odd," said the detective, "which were abstracted by
+you yesterday are concealed in this flat."
+
+"In the left-hand bottom drawer of your bureau," murmured Mr. White.
+"That is the definite knowledge which has come to us--it is a great
+pity."
+
+The girl stared from one to the other.
+
+"Three registered envelopes," she said incredulously; "in this flat?"
+
+"In the bottom drawer of your bureau," mumbled Mr. White, who stood
+throughout the interview with his eyes closed, his hands clasped in
+front of him, a picture of a man performing a most painful act of duty.
+
+"I have a warrant----" began the detective.
+
+"You need no warrant," said the girl quietly, "you are at liberty to
+search this flat or bring a woman to search me. I have nothing in these
+rooms which I am ashamed that you should see."
+
+The detective turned to his companion.
+
+"Fred," he said, "just have a look over that writing-bureau. Is it
+locked, miss?"
+
+She had closed and locked the secretaire and she handed the man the key.
+The detective who had done the speaking passed into the bedroom, and the
+girl heard him pulling out the drawers. She did not move from where she
+stood confronting her late employer, still preserving his attitude of
+somnolent detachment.
+
+"Mr. White," she asked quietly, "I have a right to know who accused me
+of stealing from your firm."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+"Even a criminal has a right to that, you know," she said, recovering
+some of her poise. "I suppose that you have been missing things for
+quite a long while--people always miss things for quite a long while
+before the thief is discovered, according to the Sunday papers."
+
+"I do not read newspapers published on the Lord's Day," said Mr. White
+reproachfully. "I do not know the habits of the criminal classes, but as
+you say, and I fear I must convey the gist of your speech to the
+officers of the law, money has been missed from your department for a
+considerable time. As to your accuser, acting as--ah--as a good citizen
+and performing the duties which are associated with good-citizenship, I
+cannot reveal his, her, or their name."
+
+She was eyeing him curiously with a gleam of dormant laughter in her
+clear eyes. Then she heard a hurried footstep in the little passage and
+remembered that the door had been left open and she looked round.
+
+The new-comer was Dr. van Heerden.
+
+"What is this I hear?" he demanded fiercely, addressing White. "You dare
+accuse Miss Cresswell of theft?"
+
+"My dear doctor," began White.
+
+"It is an outrage," said the doctor. "It is disgraceful, Mr. White. I
+will vouch for Miss Cresswell with my life."
+
+The girl stopped him with a laugh.
+
+"Please don't be dramatic, doctor. It's really a stupid mistake. I
+didn't know you knew Mr. White."
+
+"It is a disgraceful mistake," said the doctor violently. "I am
+surprised at you, White."
+
+Mr. White could not close his eyes any tighter than they were closed. He
+passed the responsibility for the situation upon an invisible Providence
+with one heaving shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"It is awfully kind of you to take this interest, doctor," said the
+girl, putting out her hands to him, "it was just like you."
+
+"Is there anything I can do?" he asked earnestly. "You can depend upon
+me to the last shilling if any trouble arises out of this."
+
+"No trouble will arise out of it," she said. "Mr. White thinks that I
+have stolen money and that that money is hidden in the flat--by the way,
+who told you that I had been accused?"
+
+For a moment he was taken aback; then:
+
+"I saw the police officers go into your flat. I recognized them, and as
+they were accompanied by White, and you had been dismissed this morning,
+I drew my own conclusions."
+
+It was at this moment that the detective came back from the bedroom.
+
+"There's nothing there," he said.
+
+Mr. White opened his eyes to their fullest extent.
+
+"In the bottom drawer of the bureau?" he asked incredulously.
+
+"Neither in the bottom drawer nor the top drawer," said the detective.
+"Have you found anything, Fred?"
+
+"Nothing," said the other man.
+
+"Have a look behind those pictures."
+
+They turned up the corners of the carpets, searched her one little
+bookcase, looked under the tables, an unnecessary and amusing
+proceeding in the girl's eyes till the detective explained with that
+display of friendliness which all policemen show to suspected persons
+whom they do not at heart suspect, it was not an uncommon process for
+criminals to tack the proceeds of bank-note robberies to the underside
+of the table.
+
+"Well, miss," said the detective at last, with a smile, "I hope we
+haven't worried you very much. What do you intend doing, sir?" He
+addressed White.
+
+"Did you search the bottom drawer of the bureau?" said Mr. White again.
+
+"I searched the bottom drawer of the bureau, the top drawer and the
+middle drawer," said the detective patiently. "I searched the back of
+the bureau, the trinket-drawer, the trinket-boxes----"
+
+"And it was not there?" said Mr. White, as though he could not believe
+his ears.
+
+"It was not there. What I want to know is, do you charge this young
+lady? If you charge her, of course you take all the responsibility for
+the act, and if you fail to convict her you will be liable to an action
+for false arrest."
+
+"I know, I know, I know," said Mr. White, with remarkable asperity in
+one so placid. "No, I do not charge her. I am sorry you have been
+inconvenienced"--he turned to the girl in his most majestic manner--"and
+I trust that you bear no ill-will."
+
+He offered a large and flabby hand, but Oliva ignored it.
+
+"Mind you don't trip over the mat as you go out," she said, "the passage
+is rather dark."
+
+Mr. White left the room, breathing heavily.
+
+"Excuse me one moment," said the doctor in a low voice. "I have a few
+words to say to White."
+
+"Please don't make a fuss," said Oliva, "I would rather the matter
+dropped where it is."
+
+He nodded, and strode out after the managing director of Punsonby's.
+They made a little group of four.
+
+"Can I see you in my flat for a moment, Mr. White?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. White cheerfully.
+
+"You don't want us any more?" asked the detective.
+
+"No," said Mr. White; then: "Are you quite sure you searched the bottom
+drawer of the bureau?"
+
+"Perfectly sure," said the detective irritably, "you don't suppose I've
+been at this job for twenty years and should overlook the one place
+where I expected to find the letters."
+
+Mr. White was saved the labour of framing a suitable retort, for the
+door of Mr. Beale's flat was flung open and Mr. Beale came forth. His
+grey hat was on the back of his head and he stood erect with the aid of
+the door-post, surveying with a bland and inane smile the little knot of
+men.
+
+"Why," he said jovially, "it's the dear old doctor, and if my eyes don't
+deceive me, it's the jolly old Archbishop."
+
+Mr. White brindled. That he was known as the Archbishop in the intimate
+circles of his acquaintances afforded him a certain satisfaction. That a
+perfect stranger, and a perfectly drunken stranger at that, should
+employ a nickname which was for the use of a privileged few, distressed
+him.
+
+"And," said the swaying man by the door, peering through the
+half-darkness: "Is it not Detective-Sergeant Peterson and Constable
+Fairbank? Welcome to this home of virtue."
+
+The detective-sergeant smiled but said nothing. The doctor fingered his
+beard indecisively, but Mr. White essayed to stride past, his chin in
+the air, ignoring the greeting, but Mr. Beale was too quick for him. He
+lurched forward, caught the lapels of the other's immaculate frock-coat
+and held himself erect thereby.
+
+"My dear old Whitey," he said.
+
+"I don't know you, sir," cried Mr. White, "will you please unhand me?"
+
+"Don't know me, Whitey? Why you astonishing old thing!"
+
+He slipped his arm over the other's shoulder in an attitude of
+affectionate regard. "Don't know old Beale?"
+
+"I never met you before," said Mr. White, struggling to escape.
+
+"Bless my life and soul," said Mr. Beale, stepping back, shocked and
+hurt, "I call you to witnesh, Detective-Sergeant Peterson and amiable
+Constable Fairbank and learned Dr. van Heerden, that he has denied me.
+And it has come to this," he said bitterly, and leaning his head against
+the door-post he howled like a dog.
+
+"I say, stop your fooling, Beale," said the doctor angrily, "there's
+been very serious business here, and I should thank you not to
+interfere."
+
+Mr. Beale wiped imaginary tears from his eyes, grasped Mr. White's
+unwilling hand and shook it vigorously, staggered back to his flat and
+slammed the door behind him.
+
+"Do you know that man?" asked the doctor, turning to the detective.
+
+"I seem to remember his face," said the sergeant. "Come on, Fred. Good
+morning, gentlemen."
+
+They waited till the officers were downstairs and out of sight, and then
+the doctor turned to the other and in a different tone from any he had
+employed, said:
+
+"Come into my room for a moment, White," and Mr. White followed him
+obediently.
+
+They shut the door and passed into the study, with its rows of heavily
+bound books, its long table covered with test-tubes and the
+paraphernalia of medical research.
+
+"Well," said White, dropping into a chair, "what happened?"
+
+"That is what I want to know," said the doctor.
+
+He took a cigarette from a box on the table and lit it and the two men
+looked at one another without speaking.
+
+"Do you think she had the letters and hid them?"
+
+"Impossible," replied the doctor briefly.
+
+White grunted, took a cigar from a long leather case, bit off the end
+savagely and reached out his hand for a match.
+
+"'The best-laid schemes of mice and men!'" he quoted.
+
+"Oh, shut up," said the doctor savagely.
+
+He was pacing the study with long strides. He stopped at one end of the
+room staring moodily through the window, his hands thrust in his
+pockets.
+
+"I wonder what happened," he said again. "Well, that can wait. Now just
+tell me exactly how matters stand in regard to you and Punsonby's."
+
+"I have all the figures here," said Mr. White, as he thrust his hand
+into the inside pocket of his frock-coat, "I can raise £40,000 by
+debentures and--hello, what's this?"
+
+He drew from his pocket a white packet, fastened about by a rubber band.
+This he slipped off and gasped, for in his hands were three registered
+letters, and they were addressed to Messrs. Punsonby, and each had been
+slit open.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BIG HEAD
+
+
+No. 342, Lothbury, is a block of business offices somewhat unpretentious
+in their approach but of surprising depth and importance when explored.
+Oliva Cresswell stood for awhile in the great lobby, inspecting the
+names of the occupants, which were inscribed on porcelain slips in two
+big frames on each wall of the vestibule.
+
+After a lengthy search she discovered the name of the Beale Agency under
+the heading "fourth floor" and made her way to the elevator.
+
+Mr. Beale's office was at the end of a seemingly interminable corridor
+and consisted, as she was to find, of an outer and an inner chamber. The
+outer was simply furnished with a table, two chairs and a railed fence
+bisected with a little wooden gateway.
+
+A boy sat at one table, engaged in laborious exercise on a typewriter
+with one finger of one hand.
+
+He jumped up as she came through the door.
+
+"Miss Cresswell?" he asked. "Mr. Beale will see you."
+
+He opened the wicket-gate and led the way to a door marked "Private."
+
+It was Beale who opened the door in response to the knock.
+
+"Come in, Miss Cresswell," he said cheerily, "I didn't expect you for
+half an hour."
+
+"I thought I'd start well," she smiled.
+
+She had had many misgivings that morning, and had spent a restless night
+debating the wisdom of engaging herself to an employer whose known
+weakness had made his name a by-word. But a promise was a promise and,
+after all, she told herself, her promise was fulfilled when she had
+given the new work a trial.
+
+"Here is your desk," he said, indicating a large office table in the
+centre of the room, "and here is my little library. You will note that
+it mainly consists of agricultural returns and reports--do you read
+French?" She nodded. "Good, and Spanish--that's rather too much to
+expect, isn't it?"
+
+"I speak and read Spanish very well," she said. "When I was a little
+girl I lived around in Paris, Lyons, and Barcelona--my first regular
+work--the first I was paid for--was in the Anglo-Spanish Cable office in
+Barcelona."
+
+"That's lucky," he said, apparently relieved, "though I could have
+taught you the few words that it is necessary you should know to
+understand the Argentine reports. What I particularly want you to
+discover--and you will find two or three hundred local guide-books on
+that shelf at the far end of the room, and these will help you a great
+deal--is the exact locations of all the big wheat-growing districts, the
+number of hectares under cultivation in normal times, the method by
+which the wheat areas are divided--by fences, roads, etc.--the average
+size of the unbroken blocks of wheatland and, if possible, the width of
+the roads or paths which divide them."
+
+"Gracious!" she cried in dismay.
+
+"It sounds a monumental business, but I think you will find it simple.
+The Agricultural Department of the United States Government, for
+instance, tabulate all those facts. For example, they compel farmers in
+certain districts to keep a clear space between each lot so that in
+case of the crops being fired, the fire may be isolated. Canada, the
+Argentine and Australia have other methods."
+
+She had seated herself at the desk and was jotting down a note of her
+duties.
+
+"Anything more?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--I want the names of the towns in the centre of the wheat-growing
+areas, a list of the hotels in those towns. The guide-books you will
+find up to date, and these will inform you on this subject. Particularly
+do I want hotels noted where automobiles can be hired, the address of
+the local bank and the name of the manager and, where the information is
+available, the name of the chief constable, sheriff or chef
+d'gendarmerie in each district."
+
+She looked up at him, her pencil poised.
+
+"Are you serious--of course, I'll do all this, but somehow it reminds me
+of a story I once read----"
+
+"I know it," said Beale promptly, "it is 'The Case of the Red-Haired
+Man,' one of Doyle's stories about a man who, to keep him away from his
+shop, was employed on the useless task of copying the _Encyclopædia
+Britannica_--no, I am asking you to do serious work, Miss
+Cresswell--work which I do not want spoken about."
+
+He sat on the edge of the table, looking down at her, and if his eyes
+were smiling it was because that was their natural expression. She had
+never seen them when they did not hold the ghost of some joke inwardly
+enjoyed.
+
+But her instinct told her that he was very much in earnest and that the
+task he had set her was one which had reason behind it.
+
+"Take the districts first and work up the hotels, et cetera," he
+suggested, "you will find it more interesting than a novel. Those little
+books," he pointed to the crowded shelf by the window, "will carry you
+to stations and ranches and farms all over the world. You shall be
+wafted through Manitoba, and cross the United States from New England to
+California. You will know Sydney and Melbourne and the great cornland at
+the back of beyond. And you'll sit in cool patios and sip iced drinks
+with Señor Don Perfecto de Cuba who has ridden in from his rancio to
+inquire the price of May wheat, or maybe you'll just amble through India
+on an elephant, sleeping in bungalows, listening to the howling of
+tigers, mosquitoes----"
+
+"Now I know you're laughing at me," she smiled.
+
+"Not altogether," he said quietly; then: "Is there any question you'd
+like to ask me? By the way, the key of the office is in the right-hand
+drawer; go to lunch when you like and stay away as long as you like.
+Your cheque will be paid you every Friday morning."
+
+"But where----?" She looked round the room. "Where do you work?"
+
+"I don't work," he said promptly, "you do the work and I get the honour
+and glory. When I come in I will sit on the edge of your desk, which is
+not graceful but it is very comfortable. There is one question I meant
+to ask you. You said you were in a cable office--do you add to your
+accomplishments a working knowledge of the Morse Code?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I can see you being useful. If you need me"--he jerked his head toward
+a telephone on a small table--"call 8761 Gerrard."
+
+"And where is that?" she asked.
+
+"If I thought you were anything but a very sane young lady, I should
+tell you that it is the number of my favourite bar," he said gravely. "I
+will not, however, practise that harmless deception upon you."
+
+Again she saw the dancing light of mischief in his eyes.
+
+"You're a queer man," she said, "and I will not make myself ridiculous
+by speaking to you for your good."
+
+She heard his soft laughter as the door closed behind him and, gathering
+an armful of the guide-books, she settled down for a morning's work
+which proved even more fascinating than his fanciful pictures had
+suggested. She found herself wondering to what use all this information
+she extracted could be put. Was Mr. Beale really a buyer or was he
+interested in the sale of agricultural machinery? Why should he want to
+know that Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of Scobbs' Hotel and General
+Emporium in the town of Red Horse Valley, Alberta, and what
+significance attached to the fact that he had an automobile for hire or
+that he ran a coach every Wednesday to Regina?
+
+Then she fell to speculating upon the identity and appearance of this
+man who bore this weird name of Scobbs. She pictured him an elderly man
+with chin whiskers who wore his pants thrust into top-boots. And why was
+Red Horse Valley so called? These unexpected and, to her, hitherto
+unknown names of places and people set in train most interesting
+processions of thought that slid through the noisy jangle of traffic,
+and coloured the drab walls of all that was visible of the City of
+London through the window with the white lights and purple shadows of
+dream prairies.
+
+When she looked at her watch--being impelled to that act by the
+indescribable sensation of hunger--she was amazed to discover that it
+was three o'clock.
+
+She jumped up and went to the outer office in search of the boy who, she
+faintly remembered, had erupted into her presence hours before with a
+request which she had granted without properly hearing. He was not in
+evidence. Evidently his petition had also been associated with the
+gnawing pangs which assail boyhood at one o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+She was turning back to her office, undecided as to whether she should
+remain until his return or close the office entirely, when the shuffle
+of feet brought her round.
+
+The outer office was partitioned from the entrance by a long "fence,"
+the farther end of which was hidden by a screen of wood and frosted
+glass. It was from behind that screen that the noise came and she
+remembered that she had noted a chair there--evidently a place where
+callers waited.
+
+"Who is there?" she asked.
+
+There was a creak as the visitor rose.
+
+"Eggscuse, mattam," said a wheezy voice, "I gall to eng-vire for Mister
+Peale, isn't it?"
+
+He shuffled forward into view, a small man with a dead white face and a
+head of monstrous size.
+
+She was bereft of speech and could only look at him, for this was the
+man she had found in her rooms the night before her dismissal--the man
+who carried the Green Rust.
+
+Evidently he did not recognize her.
+
+"Mister Peale, he tolt me, I must gall him mit der telephone, but der
+nomber she vas gone oudt of mine head!"
+
+He blinked at her with his short-sighted eyes and laid a big hairy hand
+on the gate.
+
+"You must--you mustn't come in," she said breathlessly. "I will call Mr.
+Beale--sit--sit down again."
+
+"Sch," he said obediently, and shuffled back to his chair, "dell him der
+Herr Brofessor it was."
+
+The girl took up the telephone receiver with a shaking hand and gave the
+number. It was Beale's voice that answered her.
+
+"There's a man here," she said hurriedly, "a--a--the man--who was in my
+room--the Herr Professor."
+
+She heard his exclamation of annoyance.
+
+"I'm sorry," and if she could judge by the inflection of his voice his
+sorrow was genuine. "I'll be with you in ten minutes--he's quite a
+harmless old gentleman----"
+
+"Hurry, please."
+
+She heard the "click" of his receiver and replaced her own slowly. She
+did not attempt to go back to the outer office, but waited by the closed
+door. She recalled the night, the terror of that unknown presence in her
+darkened flat, and shuddered. Then Beale, surprisingly sober, had come
+in and he and the "burglar" had gone away together.
+
+What had these two, Mr. Beale and the "Herr Professor," in common? She
+heard the snap of the outer door, and Beale's voice speaking quickly. It
+was probably German--she had never acquired the language and hardly
+recognized it, though the guttural "Zu befel, Herr Peale" was distinct.
+
+She heard the shuffle of the man's feet and the closing of the outer
+door and then Beale came in, and his face was troubled.
+
+"I can't tell you how sorry I am that the old man called--I'd forgotten
+that he was likely to come."
+
+She leant against the table, both hands behind her.
+
+"Mr. Beale," she said, "will you give me straightforward answers to a
+number of plain questions?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"If I can," he said.
+
+"Is the Herr Professor a friend of yours?"
+
+"No--I know him and in a way I am sorry for him. He is a German who
+pretends to be Russian. Immensely poor and unprepossessing to a painful
+degree, but a very clever scientist. In fact, a truly great analytical
+chemist who ought to be holding a good position. He told me that he had
+the best qualifications, and I quite believe him, but that his physical
+infirmities, his very freakishness had ruined him."
+
+Her eyes softened with pity--the pity of the strong for the weak, of the
+beautiful for the hideous.
+
+"If that is true----" she began, and his chin went up. "I beg your
+pardon, I know it is true. It is tragic, but--did you know him before
+you met him in my room?"
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"I knew him both by repute and by sight," he said. "I knew the work he
+was engaged on and I guessed why he was engaged. But I had never spoken
+to him."
+
+"Thank you--now for question number two. You needn't answer unless you
+wish."
+
+"I shan't," he said.
+
+"That's frank, anyway. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, what is all this mystery
+about? What is the Green Rust? Why do you pretend to be a--a drunkard
+when you're not one?" (It needed some boldness to say this, and she
+flushed with the effort to shape the sentence.) "Why are you always
+around so providentially when you're needed, and," here she smiled (as
+he thought) deliciously, "why weren't you round yesterday, when I was
+nearly arrested for theft?"
+
+He was back on the edge of the table, evidently his favourite
+resting-place, she thought, and he ticked her questions off on his
+fingers.
+
+"Question number one cannot be answered. Question number two, why do I
+pretend to be a--a drunkard?" he mimicked her audaciously. "There are
+other things which intoxicate a man beside love and beer, Miss
+Cresswell."
+
+"How gross!" she protested. "What are they?"
+
+"Work, the chase, scientific research and the first spring scent of the
+hawthorn," he said solemnly. "As to the third question, why was I not
+around when you were nearly arrested? Well, I was around. I was in your
+flat when you came in and escaped along the fire parapet."
+
+"Mr. Beale!" she gasped. "Then it was you--you are a detective!"
+
+"I turned your desk and dressing-chest upside down? Yes, it was I," he
+said without shame, ignoring the latter part of the sentence. "I was
+looking for something."
+
+"You were looking for something?" she repeated. "What were you looking
+for?"
+
+"Three registered envelopes which were planted in your flat yesterday
+morning," he said, "and what's more I found 'em!"
+
+She put her hand to her forehead in bewilderment.
+
+"Then you----"
+
+"Saved you from a cold, cold prison cell. Have you had any lunch? Why,
+you're starving!"
+
+"But----"
+
+"Bread and butter is what you want," said the practical Mr. Beale, "with
+a large crisp slice of chicken and stacks of various vegetables."
+
+And he hustled her from the office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MR. SCOBBS OF RED HORSE VALLEY
+
+
+Mr. White, managing director of Punsonby's Store, was a man of simple
+tastes. He had a horror of extravagance and it was his boast that he had
+never ridden in a taxi-cab save as the guest of some other person who
+paid. He travelled by tube or omnibus from the Bayswater Road, where he
+lived what he described as his private life. He lunched in the staff
+dining-room, punctiliously paying his bill; he dined at home in solitary
+state, for he had neither chick nor child, heir or wife. Once an elder
+sister had lived with him and had died (according to the popularly
+accepted idea) of slow starvation, for he was a frugal man.
+
+It seems the fate of apparently rich and frugal men that they either die
+and leave their hoardings to the State or else they disappear, leaving
+behind them monumental debts. The latter have apparently no vices; even
+the harassed accountant who disentangles their estates cannot discover
+the channel through which their hundreds of thousands have poured. The
+money has gone and, if astute detectives bring back the defaulter from
+the pleasant life which the Southern American cities offer to rich
+idlers, he is hopelessly vague as to the method by which it went.
+
+Mr. Lassimus White was the managing director and general manager of
+Punsonby's. He held, or was supposed to hold, a third of the shares in
+that concern, shares which he had inherited from John Punsonby, his
+uncle, and the founder of the firm. He drew a princely salary and a
+substantial dividend, he was listed as a debenture holder and was
+accounted a rich man.
+
+But Mr. White was not rich. His salary and his dividends were absorbed
+by a mysterious agency which called itself the Union Jack Investment and
+Mortgage Corporation, which paid premiums on Mr. White's heavy life
+insurance and collected the whole or nearly the whole of his income. His
+secret, well guarded as it was, need be no secret to the reader. Mr.
+White, who had never touched a playing-card in his life and who grew
+apoplectic at the sin and shame of playing the races, was an inveterate
+gambler. His passion was for Sunken Treasure Syndicates, formed to
+recover golden ingots from ships of the Spanish Armada; for companies
+that set forth to harness the horse-power of the sea to the services of
+commerce; for optimistic companies that discovered radium mines in the
+Ural Mountains--anything which promised a steady three hundred per cent.
+per annum on an initial investment had an irresistible attraction for
+Mr. White, who argued that some day something would really fulfil
+expectations and his losses would be recovered.
+
+In the meantime he was in the hands of Moss Ibramovitch, trading as the
+Union Jack Investment and Mortgage Corporation, licensed and registered
+as a moneylender according to law. And being in the hands of this
+gentleman, was much less satisfactory and infinitely more expensive than
+being in the hands of the bankruptcy officials.
+
+In the evening of the day Oliva Cresswell had started working for her
+new employer, Mr. White stalked forth from his gloomy house and his
+departure was watched by the two tough females who kept house for him,
+with every pleasure. He strutted eastward swinging his umbrella, his
+head well back, his eyes half-closed, his massive waistcoat curving
+regally. His silk hat was pushed back from his forehead and the
+pince-nez he carried, but so seldom wore, swung from the cord he held
+before him in that dead-mouse manner which important men affect.
+
+He had often been mistaken for a Fellow of the Royal Society, so learned
+and detached was his bearing. Yet no speculation upon the origin of
+species or the function of the nebulæ filled his mind.
+
+At a moment of great stress and distraction, Dr. van Heerden had arisen
+above his horizon, and there was something in Dr. van Heerden's manner
+which inspired confidence and respect. They had met by accident at a
+meeting held to liquidate the Shining Strand Alluvial Gold Mining
+Company--a concern which had started forth in the happiest circumstances
+to extract the fabulous riches which had been discovered by an American
+philanthropist (he is now selling Real Estate by correspondence) on a
+Southern Pacific island.
+
+Van Heerden was not a shareholder, but he was intensely interested in
+the kind of people who subscribe for shares in Dreamland Gold mines. Mr.
+White had attended incognito--his shares were held in the name of his
+lawyer, who was thinking seriously of building an annex to hold the
+unprofitable scrip.
+
+Mr. White was gratified to discover a kindred soul who believed in this
+kind of speculation.
+
+It was to the doctor's apartment that he was now walking. That gentleman
+met him in the entrance and accompanied him to his room. There was a
+light in the fanlight of Oliva's flat, for she had brought some of her
+work home to finish, but Mr. Beale's flat was dark.
+
+This the doctor noted before he closed his own door, and switched on the
+light.
+
+"Well, White, have you made up your mind?" he demanded without
+preliminary.
+
+"I--ah--have and I--ah--have not," said the cautious adventurer. "Forty
+thousand is a lot of money--a fortune, one might say--yes, a fortune."
+
+"Have you raised it?"
+
+Mr. White sniffed his objection to this direct examination.
+
+"My broker has very kindly realized the debentures--I am--ah--somewhat
+indebted to him, and it was necessary to secure his permission and--yes,
+I have the money at my bank."
+
+He gazed benignly at the other, as one who conferred a favour by the
+mere bestowal of his confidences.
+
+"First, doctor--forgive me if I am a little cautious; first I say, it is
+necessary that I should know a little more about your remarkable scheme,
+for remarkable I am sure it is."
+
+The doctor poured out a whisky and soda and passed the glass to his
+visitor, who smilingly waved it aside.
+
+"Wine is a mocker," he said, "nothing stronger than cider has ever
+passed my lips--pray do not be offended."
+
+"And yet I seem to remember that you held shares in the Northern Saloon
+Trust," said the doctor, with a little curl of his bearded lips.
+
+"That," said Mr. White hastily, "was a purely commercial--ah--affair. In
+business one must exploit even the--ah--sins and weaknesses of our
+fellows."
+
+"As to my scheme," said the doctor, changing the subject, "I'm afraid I
+must ask you to invest in the dark. I can promise you that you will get
+your capital back a hundred times over. I realize that you have heard
+that sort of thing before, and that my suggestion has all the appearance
+of a confidence trick, except that I do not offer you even the
+substantial security of a gold brick. I may not use your money--I
+believe that I shall not. On the other hand, I may. If it is to be of
+any use to me it must be in my hands very soon--to-morrow."
+
+He wandered restlessly about the room as he spoke, and jerked his
+sentences out now to Mr. White's face, now over his shoulder.
+
+"I will tell you this," he went on, "my scheme within the narrow
+interpretation of the law is illegal--don't mistake me, there is no
+danger to those who invest in ignorance. I will bear the full burden of
+responsibility. You can come in or you can stay out, but if you come in
+I shall ask you never to mention the name of the enterprise to a living
+soul."
+
+"The Green Rust Syndicate?" whispered Mr. White fearfully. "What--ah--is
+Green Rust?"
+
+"I have offered the scheme to my--to a Government. But they are scared
+of touching it. Scared, by Jove!" He threw up his arms to the ceiling
+and his voice trembled with passion. "Germany scared! And there was a
+time when Europe cringed at the clank of the Prussian sword! When the
+lightest word of Potsdam set ministries trembling in Petrograd and
+London. You told me the other day you were a pacifist during the war and
+that you sympathized with Prussia in her humiliation. I am a Prussian,
+why should I deny it? I glory in the religion of might--I believe it
+were better that the old civilization were stamped into the mud of
+oblivion than that Prussian Kultur should be swept away by the
+licentious French, the mercenary English----"
+
+"British," murmured Mr. White.
+
+"And the dollar-hunting Yankees--but I'm making a fool of myself."
+
+With an effort he regained his calm.
+
+"The war's over and done with. As I say, I offered my Government my
+secret. They thought it good but could not help me. They were afraid
+that the League would come to learn they were supporting it. They'll
+help me in other ways--innocent ways. If this scheme goes through they
+will put the full resources of the State at my disposal."
+
+Mr. White rose, groped for his hat and cleared his throat.
+
+"Dr.--ah--van Heerden, you may be sure that I shall--ah--respect your
+confidence. With your very natural indignation I am in complete
+sympathy.
+
+"But let us forget, ah--that you have spoken at all about the scheme in
+any detail--especially in so far as to its legality or otherwise. Let us
+forget, sir "--Mr. White thrust his hand into the bosom of his coat, an
+attitude he associated with the subtle rhetoric of statesmanship. "Let
+us forget all, save this, that you invite me to subscribe £40,000 to a
+syndicate for--ah--let us say model dwellings for the working classes,
+and that I am willing to subscribe, and in proof of my willingness will
+send you by the night's post a cheque for that amount. Good night,
+doctor."
+
+He shook hands, pulled his hat down upon his head, opened the door and
+ran into the arms of a man whose hand was at that moment raised to press
+the electric bell-push by the side of the door.
+
+Both started back.
+
+"Excuse me," mumbled Mr. White, and hurried down the stairs.
+
+Dr. van Heerden glared at the visitor, white with rage.
+
+"Come in, you fool!" he hissed, and half-dragged the man into his room,
+"what made you leave Scotland?"
+
+"Scotland I hate!" said the visitor huskily. "Sticking a fellow away in
+the wilds of the beastly mountains, eh? That's not playing the game, my
+cheery sportsman."
+
+"When did you arrive?" asked van Heerden quickly.
+
+"Seven p.m. Travelled third class! Me! Is it not the most absurd
+position for a man of my parts--third class, with foul and common
+people--I'd like to rip them all up--I would, by heavens!"
+
+The doctor surveyed the coarse, drink-bloated face, the loose, weak
+mouth, half-smiled at the vanity of the dangling monocle and pointed to
+the decanter.
+
+"You did wrong to come," he said, "I have arranged your passage to
+Canada next week."
+
+"I'll not go!" said the man, tossing down a drink and wiping his lips
+with a not over-clean handkerchief. "Curse me, van Heerden, why should I
+hide and fly like a--a----"
+
+"Like a man who escaped from Cayenne," suggested the doctor, "or like a
+man who is wanted by the police of three countries for crimes ranging
+from arson to wilful murder."
+
+The man shuddered.
+
+"All fair fights, my dear fellow," he said more mildly, "if I hadn't
+been a boastful, drunken sot, you wouldn't have heard of 'em--you
+wouldn't, curse you. I was mad! I had you in my hand like that!" He
+closed a not over-clean fist under van Heerden's nose. "I saw it all,
+all, I saw you bullying the poor devil, shaking some secret out of him,
+I saw you knife him----"
+
+"Hush!" hissed van Heerden. "You fool--people can hear through these
+walls."
+
+"But there are no windows to see through," leered the man, "and I _saw_!
+He came out of his death-trance to denounce you, by Jove! I heard him
+shout and I saw you run in and lay him down--lay him down! Lay him out
+is better! You killed him to shut his mouth, my bonnie doctor!"
+
+Van Heerden's face was as white as a sheet, but the hand he raised to
+his lips was without a tremor.
+
+"You were lucky to find me that night, dear lad," the man went on. "I
+was in a mind to split on you."
+
+"You have no cause to regret my finding you, Jackson," said the doctor.
+"I suppose you still call yourself by that name?"
+
+"Yes, Jackson," said the other promptly. "Jack--son, son of Jack. Fine
+name, eh--good enough for me and good enough for anybody else. Yes, you
+found me and done me well. I wish you hadn't. How I wish you hadn't."
+
+"Ungrateful fool!" said van Heerden. "I probably saved your life--hid
+you in Eastbourne, took you to London, whilst the police were searching
+for you."
+
+"For me!" snarled the other. "A low trick, by the Everlasting
+Virtues----!"
+
+"Don't be an idiot--whose word would they have taken, yours or mine? Now
+let's talk--on Thursday next you sail for Quebec...."
+
+He detailed his instructions at length and the man called Jackson,
+mellowed by repeated visits to the decanter, listened and even approved.
+
+On the other side of the hallway, behind the closed door, Oliva
+Cresswell, her dining-table covered with papers and books, was working
+hard.
+
+She was particularly anxious to show Mr. Beale a sample of her work in
+the morning and was making a fair copy of what she had described to him
+that afternoon as her "hotel list."
+
+"They are such queer names," she said; "there is one called Scobbs of
+Red Horse Valley--Scobbs!"
+
+He had laughed.
+
+"Strangely enough, I know Mr. Scobbs, who is quite a personage in that
+part of the world. He owns a chain of hotels in Western Canada. You
+mustn't leave him out."
+
+Even had she wished to, or even had the name been overlooked once, she
+could not have escaped it. For Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of
+Scobbs' Hotel in Falling Star City; of the Bellevue in Snakefence, of
+the Palace Hotel in Portage.
+
+After awhile it began to lose its novelty and she accepted the discovery
+of unsuspected properties of Mr. Scobbs as inevitable.
+
+She filled in the last ruled sheet and blotted it, gathered the sheets
+together and fastened them with a clip.
+
+She yawned as she rose and realized that her previous night's sleep had
+been fitful.
+
+She wondered as she began to undress if she would dream of Scobbs
+or--no, she didn't want to dream of big-headed men with white faces, and
+the thought awoke a doubt in her mind. Had she bolted the door of the
+flat? She went along the passage in her stockinged feet, shot the bolts
+smoothly and was aware of voices outside. They came to her clearly
+through the ventilator above the fanlight.
+
+She heard the doctor say something and then a voice which she had not
+heard before.
+
+"Don't worry--I've a wonderful memory, by Jove!..."
+
+The murmur of the doctor did not reach her, but----
+
+"Yes, yes ... Scobbs' Hotel, Red Horse Valley ... know the place well
+... good night, dear old thing...."
+
+A door banged, an uncertain footstep died away in the well of the stairs
+below, and she was left to recover from her amazement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PLAIN WORDS FROM MR. BEALE
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell did not feel at all sleepy, so she discovered, by the
+time she was ready for bed. To retire in that condition of wakefulness
+meant another sleepless night, and she slipped a kimono over her, found
+a book and settled into the big wicker-chair under the light for the
+half-hour's reading which would reduce her to the necessary state of
+drowsiness. The book at any other time would have held her attention,
+but now she found her thoughts wandering. On the other side of the wall
+(she regarded it with a new interest) was the young man who had so
+strangely intruded himself into her life. Or was he out? What would a
+man like that do with his evenings? He was not the sort of person who
+could find any pleasure in making a round of music-halls or sitting up
+half the night in a card-room.
+
+She heard a dull knock, and it came from the wall.
+
+Mr. Beale was at home then, he had pushed a chair against the wall, or
+he was knocking in nails at this hour of the night.
+
+"Thud--thud--thud"--a pause--"thud, tap, thud, tap."
+
+The dull sound was as if made by a fist, the tap by a finger-tip.
+
+It was repeated.
+
+Suddenly the girl jumped up with a little laugh. He was signalling to
+her and had sent "O.C."--her initials.
+
+She tapped three times with her finger, struck once with the flat of her
+hand and tapped again. She had sent the "Understood" message.
+
+Presently he began and she jotted the message on the margin of her book.
+
+"Most urgent: Don't use soap. Bring it to office."
+
+She smiled faintly. She expected something more brilliant in the way of
+humour even from Mr. Beale. She tapped "acknowledged" and went to bed.
+
+"Matilda, my innocent child," she said to herself, as she snuggled up
+under the bed-clothes, "exchanging midnight signals with a lodger is
+neither proper nor lady-like."
+
+She had agreed with herself that in spite of the latitude she was
+allowed in the matter of office hours, that she would put in an
+appearance punctually at ten. This meant rising not later than eight,
+for she had her little household to put in order before she left.
+
+It was the postman's insistent knocking at eight-thirty that woke her
+from a dreamless sleep, and, half-awake, she dragged herself into her
+dressing-gown and went to the door.
+
+"Parcel, miss," said the invisible official, and put into the hand that
+came round the edge of the door a letter and a small package. She
+brought them to the sitting-room and pulled back the curtains. The
+letter was type-written and was on the note-paper of a well-known firm
+of perfumers. It was addressed to "Miss Olivia Cresswell," and ran:
+
+
+     "DEAR MADAME,--
+
+     "We have pleasure in sending you for your use a sample cake of our
+     new Complexion Soap, which we trust will meet with your approval."
+
+
+"But how nice," she said, and wondered why she had been singled out for
+the favour. She opened the package. In a small carton, carefully wrapped
+in the thinnest of paper, was an oval tablet of lavender-coloured soap
+that exhaled a delicate fragrance.
+
+"But how nice," she said again, and put the gift in the bath-room.
+
+This was starting the day well--a small enough foundation for happiness,
+yet one which every woman knows, for happiness is made up of small and
+acceptable things and, given the psychological moment, a bunch of
+primroses has a greater value than a rope of pearls.
+
+In her bath she picked up the soap and dropped it back in the tidy again
+quickly.
+
+"Don't use soap; bring it to office."
+
+She remembered the message in a flash. Beale had known that this parcel
+was coming then, and his "most urgent" warning was not a joke. She
+dressed quickly, made a poor breakfast and was at the office ten minutes
+before the hour.
+
+She found her employer waiting, sitting in his accustomed place on the
+edge of the table in her office. He gave her a little nod of welcome,
+and without a word stretched out his hand.
+
+"The soap?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+She opened her bag.
+
+"Good," he said. "I see you have kept the wrappings, and that, I
+presume, is the letter which accompanied the--what shall I say--gift?
+Don't touch it with your bare hand," he said quickly. "Handle it with
+the paper."
+
+He pulled his gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then took the
+cake of soap in his hand and carried it to the light, smelt it and
+returned it to its paper.
+
+"Now let me see the letter."
+
+She handed it to him, and he read it.
+
+"From Brandan, the perfumers. They wouldn't be in it, but we had better
+make sure."
+
+He walked to the telephone and gave a number, and the girl heard him
+speaking in a low tone to somebody at the other end. Presently he put
+down the receiver and walked back, his hands thrust into his pockets.
+
+"They know nothing about this act of generosity," he said.
+
+By this time she had removed her coat and hat and hung them up, and had
+taken her place at her desk. She sat with her elbows on the
+blotting-pad, her chin on her clasped hands, looking up at him.
+
+"I don't think it's fair that things should be kept from me any longer,"
+she said. "Many mysterious things have happened in the past few days,
+and since they have all directly affected me, I think I am entitled to
+some sort of explanation."
+
+"I think you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but
+I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell
+you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would
+have been covered from head to foot in a rather alarming and irritating
+rash."
+
+She gasped.
+
+"But who dared to send me this?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Who knows? But first let me ask you this, Miss Cresswell. Suppose
+to-night when you had looked at yourself in the glass you had discovered
+your face was covered with red blotches and, on further examination, you
+found your arms and, indeed, the whole of your body similarly
+disfigured, what would you have done?"
+
+She thought for a moment.
+
+"Why, of course, I should have sent for the doctor."
+
+"Which doctor?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"Doctor van Heerden--oh!" She looked at him resentfully. "You don't
+suggest that Doctor van Heerden sent that hideous thing to me?"
+
+"I don't suggest anything," said Mr. Beale coolly.
+
+"I merely say that you would have sent for a doctor, and that that
+doctor would have been Doctor van Heerden. I say further, that he would
+have come to you and been very sympathetic, and would have ordered you
+to remain in bed for four or five days. I think, too," he said, looking
+up at the ceiling and speaking slowly, as though he were working out the
+possible consequence in his mind, "that he would have given you some
+very palatable medicine."
+
+"What are you insinuating?" she asked quietly.
+
+He did not reply immediately.
+
+"If you will get out of your mind the idea that I have any particular
+grievance against Doctor van Heerden, that I regard him as a rival, a
+business rival let us say, or that I have some secret grudge against
+him, and if in place of that suspicion you would believe that I am
+serving a much larger interest than is apparent to you, I think we might
+discuss"--he smiled--"even Doctor van Heerden without such a discussion
+giving offence to you."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I am really not offended. I am rather distressed, if anything," she
+said, knitting her brows. "You see, Doctor van Heerden has always been
+most kind to me."
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"He got you your rooms at the flats," he replied quietly; "he was also
+ready to give you employment the moment you were providentially
+discharged from Punsonby's. Does it not strike you, Miss Cresswell, that
+every kind act of Doctor van Heerden's has had a tendency to bring you
+together, into closer association, I mean? Does it not appear to you
+that the net result of all the things that might have happened to you in
+the past few days would have been to make you more and more dependent
+upon Doctor van Heerden? For example, if you had gone into his employ as
+he planned that you should?"
+
+"Planned!" she gasped.
+
+His face was grave now and the laughter had gone out of his eyes.
+
+"Planned," he said quietly. "You were discharged from Punsonby's at
+Doctor van Heerden's instigation."
+
+"I will not believe it!"
+
+"That will not make it any less the fact," said Mr. Beale. "You were
+nearly arrested--again at Doctor van Heerden's instigation. He was
+waiting for you when you came back from Punsonby's, ready to offer you
+his job. When he discovered you had already engaged yourself he
+telephoned to White, instructing him to have you arrested so that you
+might be disgraced and might turn to him, your one loyal friend."
+
+She listened speechless. She could only stare at him and could not even
+interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly
+that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed
+her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was at
+least probability.
+
+"I suggest even more," Beale went on. "I suggest that for some purpose,
+Doctor van Heerden desires to secure a mental, physical and moral
+ascendancy over you. In other words, he wishes to enslave you to his
+will."
+
+She looked at him in wonder and burst into a peal of ringing laughter.
+
+"Really, Mr. Beale, you are too absurd," she said.
+
+"Aren't I?" he smiled. "It sounds like something out of a melodrama."
+
+"Why on earth should he want to secure a mental ascendancy over me? Do
+you suggest----" She flushed.
+
+"I suggest nothing any longer," said Beale, slipping off from the end of
+the table. "I merely make a statement of fact. I do not think he has any
+designs on you, within the conventional meaning of that phrase, indeed,
+I think he wants to marry you--what do you think about that?"
+
+She had recovered something of her poise, and her sense of humour was
+helping her out of a situation which, without such a gift, might have
+been an embarrassing one.
+
+"I think you have been seeing too many plays and reading too many
+exciting books, Mr. Beale," she said, "I confess I have never regarded
+Doctor van Heerden as a possible suitor, and if I thought he was I
+should be immensely flattered. But may I suggest to you that there are
+other ways of winning a girl than by giving her nettle-rash!"
+
+They laughed together.
+
+"All right," he said, swinging up his hat, "proceed with the good work
+and seek out the various domiciles of Mr. Scobbs."
+
+Then she remembered.
+
+"Do you know----?"
+
+He was at the door when she spoke and he stopped and turned.
+
+"The name of Mr. Scobbs gives me a cold shiver."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Answer me this," she said: "why should I who have never heard of him
+before until yesterday hear his name mentioned by a perfect stranger?"
+
+The smile died away from his face.
+
+"Who mentioned him! No, it isn't idle curiosity," he said in face of her
+derisive finger. "I am really serious. Who mentioned his name?"
+
+"A visitor of Doctor van Heerden's. I heard them talking through the
+ventilator when I was bolting my door."
+
+"A visitor to Doctor van Heerden, and he mentioned Mr. Scobbs of Red
+Horse Valley," he said half to himself. "You didn't see the man?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You just heard him. No names were mentioned?"
+
+"None," she said. "Is it a frightfully important matter?"
+
+"It is rather," he replied. "We have got to get busy," and with this
+cryptic remark he left her.
+
+The day passed as quickly as its predecessor. The tabulation at which
+she was working grew until by the evening there was a pile of sheets in
+the left-hand cupboard covered with her fine writing. She might have
+done more but for the search she had to make for a missing report to
+verify one of her facts. It was not on the shelf, and she was about to
+abandon her search and postpone the confirmation till she saw Beale,
+when she noticed a cupboard beneath the shelves. It was unlocked and she
+opened it and found, as she had expected, that it was full of books,
+amongst which was the missing documentation she sought.
+
+With a view to future contingencies, she examined the contents of the
+cupboard and was arrested by a thin volume which bore no inscription or
+title on its blank cover. She opened it, and on the title page read:
+"The Millinborn Murder." The author's name was not given and the
+contents were made up of very careful analysis of evidence given by the
+various witnesses at the inquest, and plans and diagrams with little red
+crosses to show where every actor in that tragedy had been.
+
+She read the first page idly and turned it. She was half-way down the
+second page when she uttered a little exclamation, for a familiar name
+was there, the name of Dr. van Heerden.
+
+Fascinated, she read the story to the end, half-expecting that the name
+of Mr. Beale would occur.
+
+There were many names all unknown to her and one that occurred with the
+greatest frequency was that of James Kitson. Mr. Beale did not appear to
+have played any part. She read for an hour, sitting on the floor by the
+cupboard. She reached the last page, closed the book and slipped it back
+in the cupboard. She wondered why Beale had preserved this record and
+whether his antagonism to the doctor was founded on that case. At first
+she thought she identified him with the mysterious man who had appeared
+in the plantation before the murder, but a glance back at the
+description of the stranger dispelled that idea. For all the reputation
+he had, Mr. Beale did not have "an inflamed, swollen countenance,
+colourless bloodshot eyes," nor was he bald.
+
+She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed her work to be
+interrupted, and in penance decided to remain on until six instead of
+five o'clock as she had intended. Besides, she half expected that Mr.
+Beale would return, and was surprised to discover that she was
+disappointed that he had not.
+
+At six o'clock she dismissed the boy, closed and locked the office, and
+made her way downstairs into the crowded street.
+
+To her surprise she heard her name spoken, and turned to face Dr. van
+Heerden.
+
+"I have been waiting for you for nearly an hour," he said with
+good-humoured reproach.
+
+"And your patients are probably dying like flies," she countered.
+
+It was in her mind to make some excuse and go home alone, but curiosity
+got the better of her and impelled her to wait to discover the object of
+this unexpected visitation.
+
+"How did you know where I was working?" she asked, as the thought
+occurred to her.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"It was a very simple matter. I was on my way to a patient and I saw you
+coming out to lunch," he said, "and as I found myself in the
+neighbourhood an hour ago I thought I would wait and take you home. You
+are doing a very foolish thing," he added.
+
+"What do you mean--in stopping to talk to you when I ought to be on my
+way home to tea?"
+
+"No, in engaging yourself to a man like Beale. You know the reputation
+he has! My dear girl, I was shocked when I discovered who your employer
+was."
+
+"I don't think you need distress yourself on my account, doctor," she
+said quietly. "Really, Mr. Beale is quite pleasant--in his lucid
+moments," she smiled to herself.
+
+She was not being disloyal to her employer. If he chose to encourage
+suspicion in his mode of life he must abide by the consequences.
+
+"But a drunkard, faugh!" The exquisite doctor shivered. "I have always
+tried to be a friend of yours, Miss Cresswell, and I hope you are going
+to let me continue to be, and my advice to you in that capacity is--give
+Mr. Beale notice."
+
+"How absurd you are!" she laughed. "There is no reason in the world why
+I should do anything of the sort. Mr. Beale has treated me with the
+greatest consideration."
+
+"What is he, by the way?" asked the doctor.
+
+"He's an agent of some sort," said the girl, "but I am sure you don't
+want me to discuss his business. And now I must go, doctor, if you will
+excuse me."
+
+"One moment," he begged. "I have a cab here. Won't you come and have
+tea somewhere?"
+
+"Where is somewhere?" she asked.
+
+"The Grand Alliance?" he suggested.
+
+She nodded slowly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE
+
+
+The hotel and the café of the Grand Alliance was London's newest
+rendezvous. Its great palm-court was crowded at the tea-hour and if, as
+the mysterious Mr. Beale had hinted, any danger was to be apprehended
+from Dr. van Heerden, it could not come to her in that most open of
+public places.
+
+She had no fear, but that eighth sense of armed caution, which is the
+possession of every girl who has to work for her living and is conscious
+of the perils which await her on every side, reviewed with lightning
+speed all the possibilities and gave her the passport of approval.
+
+It was later than she had thought. Only a few tables were occupied, but
+he had evidently reserved one, for immediately on his appearance the
+waiter with a smirk led him to one of the alcoves and pulled back a
+chair for the girl. She looked round as she stripped her gloves. The
+place was not unfamiliar to her. It was here she came at rare intervals,
+when her finances admitted of such an hilarious recreation, to find
+comfort for jangled nerves, to sit and sip her tea to the sound of
+violins and watch the happy crowd at her leisure, absorbing something of
+the happiness they diffused.
+
+The palm-court was a spacious marble hall, a big circle of polished
+pillars supporting the dome, through the tinted glass of which the light
+was filtered in soft hues upon the marble floor below.
+
+"Doctor," she said, suddenly remembering, "I have been reading quite a
+lot about you to-day."
+
+He raised his eyebrows.
+
+"About me?"
+
+She nodded, smiling mischievously.
+
+"I didn't know that you were such a famous person--I have been reading
+about the Millinborn murder."
+
+"You have been reading about the Millinborn murder?" he said steadily,
+looking into her eyes. "An unpleasant case and one I should like to
+forget."
+
+"I thought it was awfully thrilling," she said. "It read like a
+detective story without a satisfactory end."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"What a perfectly gruesome subject for tea-table talk," he said lightly,
+and beckoned the head-waiter. "You are keeping us waiting, Jaques."
+
+"Doctor, it will be but a few minutes," pleaded the waiter, and then in
+a low voice, which was not so low that it did not reach the girl. "We
+have had some trouble this afternoon, doctor, with your friend."
+
+"My friend?"
+
+The doctor looked up sharply.
+
+"Whom do you mean?"
+
+"With Mr. Jackson."
+
+"Jackson," said the doctor, startled. "I thought he had left."
+
+"He was to leave this morning by the ten o'clock train, but he had a
+fainting-fit. We recovered him with brandy and he was too well, for this
+afternoon he faint again."
+
+"Where is he now?" asked van Heerden, after a pause.
+
+"In his room, monsieur. To-night he leave for Ireland--this he tell
+me--to catch the mail steamer at Queenstown."
+
+"Don't let him know I am here," said the doctor.
+
+He turned to the girl with a shrug.
+
+"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he
+said.
+
+"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he
+faints."
+
+"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these little attacks are
+not serious--he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of
+over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."
+
+She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So
+that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to
+Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her
+information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have
+mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.
+
+Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it
+off.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"
+
+"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I
+know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now,
+I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"--he leant across the table and
+spoke in a lower tone--"something that I have never told to a human
+being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that
+Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in
+this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."
+
+"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.
+
+"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you
+have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson
+when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the
+heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by
+this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw
+anything, but later he may change his tune."
+
+A light dawned upon her.
+
+"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"
+
+"Exactly," said the doctor.
+
+"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police
+searching for Jackson?"
+
+"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should
+find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am
+sending Mr. Jackson to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of
+mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."
+
+He met her eyes unfalteringly.
+
+"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red
+Horse Valley."
+
+He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment
+was inarticulate.
+
+"What--what do you know?" he asked incoherently.
+
+His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at
+the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had
+created.
+
+"I only know that I heard Mr. Jackson through the ventilator of my flat,
+saying good-bye to you the other night. He mentioned Red Horse
+Valley----"
+
+He drew a deep breath and was master of himself again, but his face was
+still pale.
+
+"Oh, that," he said, "that is a polite fiction. Jackson knows of this
+inebriates' home in Ontario and I had to provide him with a destination.
+He will go no farther than----"
+
+"Why, curse my life, if it isn't the doctor!"
+
+At the sound of the raucous voice both looked up. The man called Jackson
+had hailed them from the centre of the hall. He was well dressed, but no
+tailor could compensate for the repulsiveness of that puckered and
+swollen face, those malignant eyes which peered out into the world
+through two slits. He was wearing his loud-check suit, his new hat was
+in his hand and the conical-shaped dome of his head glistened baldly.
+
+"I'm cursed if this isn't amiable of you, doctor!"
+
+He did not look at the girl, but grinned complacently upon her angry
+companion.
+
+"Here I am "--he threw out his arms with an extravagant
+gesture--"leaving the country of my adoption, if not birth, without one
+solitary soul to see me off or take farewell of me. I, who have
+been--well, you know, what I've been, van Heerden. The world has treated
+me very badly. By heaven! I'd like to come back a billionaire and ruin
+all of 'em. I'd like to cut their throats and amputate 'em limb from
+limb, I would like----"
+
+"Be silent!" said van Heerden angrily. "Have you no decency? Do you not
+realize I am with a lady?"
+
+"Pardon." The man called Jackson leapt up from the chair into which he
+had fallen and bowed extravagantly in the direction of the girl. "I
+cannot see your face because of your hat, my dear lady," he said
+gallantly, "but I am sure my friend van Heerden, whose taste----"
+
+"Will you be quiet?" said van Heerden. "Go to your room and I will come
+up to you."
+
+"Go to my room!" scoffed the other. "By Jove! I like that! That any
+whipper-snapper of a sawbones should tell me to go to my room. After
+what I have been, after the position I have held in society. I have had
+ambassadors' carriages at my door, my dear fellow, princes of the royal
+blood, and to be told to go to my room like a naughty little boy! It's
+too much!"
+
+"Then behave yourself," said van Heerden, "and at least wait until I am
+free before you approach me again."
+
+But the man showed no inclination to move; rather did this rebuff
+stimulate his power of reminiscence.
+
+"Ignore me, miss--I have not your name, but I am sure it is a noble
+one," he said. "You see before you one who in his time has been a squire
+of dames, by Jove! I can't remember 'em. They must number thousands and
+only one of them was worth two sous. Yes," he shook his head in
+melancholy, "only one of 'em. By Jove! The rest were"--he snapped his
+fingers--"that for 'em!"
+
+The girl listened against her will.
+
+"Jackson!"--and van Heerden's voice trembled with passion--"will you go
+or must I force you to go?"
+
+Jackson rose with a loud laugh.
+
+"Evidently I am _de trop_," he said with heavy sarcasm.
+
+He held out a swollen hand which van Heerden ignored.
+
+"Farewell, mademoiselle." He thrust the hand forward, so that she could
+not miss it.
+
+She took it, a cold flabby thing which sent a shudder of loathing
+through her frame, and raised her face to his for the first time.
+
+He let the hand drop. He was staring at her with open mouth and features
+distorted with horror.
+
+"You!" he croaked.
+
+She shrunk back against the wall of the alcove, but he made no movement.
+She sensed the terror and agony in his voice.
+
+"You!" he gasped. "Mary!"
+
+"Hang you! Go!" roared van Heerden, and thrust him back.
+
+But though he staggered back a pace under the weight of the other's arm,
+his eyes did not leave the girl's face, and she, fascinated by the
+appeal in the face of the wreck, could not turn hers away.
+
+"Mary!" he whispered, "what is your other name?"
+
+With an effort the girl recovered herself.
+
+"My name is not Mary," she said quietly. "My name is Oliva Cresswell."
+
+"Oliva Cresswell," he repeated. "Oliva Cresswell!"
+
+He made a movement toward her but van Heerden barred his way. She heard
+Jackson say something in a strangled voice and heard van Heerden's sharp
+"What!" and there was a fierce exchange of words.
+
+The attention of the few people in the palm-court had been attracted to
+the unusual spectacle of two men engaged in what appeared to be a
+struggle.
+
+"Sit down, sit down, you fool! Sit over there. I will come to you in a
+minute. Can you swear what you say is true?"
+
+Jackson nodded. He was shaking from head to foot.
+
+"My name is Prédeaux," he said; "that is my daughter--I married in the
+name of Cresswell. My daughter," he repeated. "How wonderful!"
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked van Heerden.
+
+He had half-led, half-pushed the other to a chair near one of the
+pillars of the rotunda.
+
+"I am going to tell her," said the wreck. "What are you doing with her?"
+he demanded fiercely.
+
+"That is no business of yours," replied van Heerden sharply.
+
+"No business of mine, eh! I'll show you it's some business of mine. I am
+going to tell her all I know about you. I have been a rotter and worse
+than a rotter." The old flippancy had gone and the harsh voice was
+vibrant with purpose. "My path has been littered with the wrecks of
+human lives," he said bitterly, "and they are mostly women. I broke the
+heart of the best woman in the world, and I am going to see that you
+don't break the heart of her daughter."
+
+"Will you be quiet?" hissed van Heerden. "I will go and get her away and
+then I will come back to you."
+
+Jackson did not reply. He sat huddled up in his chair, muttering to
+himself, and van Heerden walked quickly back to the girl.
+
+"I am afraid I shall have to let you go back by yourself. He is having
+one of his fits. I think it is delirium tremens."
+
+"Don't you think you had better send for----" she began. She was going
+to say "send for a doctor," and the absurdity of the request struck her.
+
+"I think you had better go," he said hastily, with a glance at the man
+who was struggling to his feet. "I can't tell you how sorry I am that
+we've had this scene."
+
+"Stop!"--it was Jackson's voice.
+
+He stood swaying half-way between the chair he had left and the alcove,
+and his trembling finger was pointing at them.
+
+"Stop!" he said in a commanding voice. "Stop! I've got something to say
+to you. I know ... he's making you pay for the Green Rust...."
+
+So far he got when he reeled and collapsed in a heap on the floor. The
+doctor sprang forward, lifted him and carried him to the chair by the
+pillar. He picked up the overcoat that the man had been wearing and
+spread it over him.
+
+"It's a fainting-fit, nothing to be alarmed about," he said to the
+little knot of people from the tables who had gathered about the limp
+figure. "Jaques"--he called the head-waiter--"get some brandy, he must
+be kept warm."
+
+"Shall I ring for an ambulance, m'sieur?"
+
+"It is not necessary," said van Heerden. "He will recover in a few
+moments. Just leave him," and he walked back to the alcove.
+
+"Who is he?" asked the girl, and her voice was shaking in spite of
+herself.
+
+"He is a man I knew in his better days," said van Heerden, "and now I
+think you must go."
+
+"I would rather wait to see if he recovers," she said with some
+obstinacy.
+
+"I want you to go," he said earnestly; "you would please me very much if
+you would do as I ask."
+
+"There's the waiter!" she interrupted, "he has the brandy. Won't you
+give it to him?"
+
+It was the doctor who in the presence of the assembled visitors
+dissolved a white pellet in the brandy before he forced the clenched
+teeth apart and poured the liquor to the last drop down the man's
+throat.
+
+Jackson or Prédeaux, to give him his real name, shuddered as he drank,
+shuddered again a few seconds later and then went suddenly limp.
+
+The doctor bent down and lifted his eyelid.
+
+"I am afraid--he is dead," he said in a low voice.
+
+"Dead!" the girl stared at him. "Oh no! Not dead!"
+
+Van Heerden nodded.
+
+"Heart failure," he said.
+
+"The same kind of heart failure that killed John Millinborn," said a
+voice behind him. "The cost of the Green Rust is totalling up, doctor."
+
+The girl swung round. Mr. Beale was standing at her elbow, but his
+steady eyes were fixed upon van Heerden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CRIME AGAINST THE WORLD
+
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Dr. van Heerden.
+
+"I merely repeat the words of the dead man," answered Beale, "heart
+failure!"
+
+He picked up from the table the leather case which the doctor had taken
+from his pocket. There were four little phials and one of these was
+uncorked.
+
+"Digitalis!" he read. "That shouldn't kill him, doctor."
+
+He looked at van Heerden thoughtfully, then picked up the phial again.
+It bore the label of a well-known firm of wholesale chemists, and the
+seal had apparently been broken for the first time when van Heerden
+opened the tiny bottle.
+
+"You have sent for the police?" Beale asked the agitated manager.
+
+"Oui, m'sieur--directly. They come now, I think."
+
+He walked to the vestibule to meet three men in plain clothes who had
+just come through the swing-doors. There was something about van
+Heerden's attitude which struck Beale as strange. He was standing in the
+exact spot he had stood when the detective had addressed him. It seemed
+as if something rooted him to the spot. He did not move even when the
+ambulance men were lifting the body nor when the police were taking
+particulars of the circumstances of the death. And Beale, escorting the
+shaken girl up the broad staircase to a room where she could rest and
+recover, looked back over his shoulder and saw him still standing, his
+head bent, his fingers smoothing his beard.
+
+"It was dreadful, dreadful," said the girl with a shiver. "I have never
+seen anybody--die. It was awful."
+
+Beale nodded. His thoughts were set on the doctor. Why had he stood so
+motionless? He was not the kind of man to be shocked by so normal a
+phenomenon as death. He was a doctor and such sights were common to him.
+What was the reason for this strange paralysis which kept him chained to
+the spot even after the body had been removed?
+
+The girl was talking, but he did not hear her. He knew instinctively
+that in van Heerden's curious attitude was a solution of Prédeaux's
+death.
+
+"Excuse me a moment," he said.
+
+He passed with rapid strides from the room, down the broad stairway and
+into the palm-court.
+
+Van Heerden had gone.
+
+The explanation flashed upon him and he hurried to the spot where the
+doctor had stood.
+
+On the tessellated floor was a little patch no bigger than a saucer
+which had been recently washed.
+
+He beckoned the manager.
+
+"Who has been cleaning this tile?" he asked.
+
+The manager shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It was the doctor, sare--so eccentric! He call for a glass of water and
+he dip his handkerchief in and then lift up his foot and with rapidity
+incredible he wash the floor with his handkerchief!"
+
+"Fool!" snapped Beale. "Oh, hopeless fool!"
+
+"Sare!" said the startled manager.
+
+"It's all right, M'sieur Barri," smiled Beale ruefully. "I was
+addressing myself--oh, what a fool I've been!"
+
+He went down on his knees and examined the floor.
+
+"I want this tile, don't let anybody touch it," he said.
+
+Of course, van Heerden had stood because under his foot he had crushed
+the digitalis tablet he had taken from the phial, and for which he had
+substituted something more deadly. Had he moved, the powdered tablet
+would have been seen. It was simple--horribly simple.
+
+He walked slowly back to where he had left Oliva.
+
+What followed seemed ever after like a bad dream to the girl. She was
+stunned by the tragedy which had happened under her eyes and could offer
+no evidence which in any way assisted the police in their subsequent
+investigation, the sum of which was ably set forth in the columns of the
+_Post Record_.
+
+
+     "The tragedy which occurred in the Palm-Court of the Grand Alliance
+     Hotel yesterday must be added to the already long list of London's
+     unravelled mysteries. The deceased, a man named Jackson, has been
+     staying at the hotel for a week and was on the point of departure
+     for Canada. At the last moment Dr. van Heerden, who was assisting
+     the unfortunate man, discovered that Jackson was no other than the
+     wanted man in the Millinborn murder, a crime which most of our
+     readers will recall.
+
+     "Dr. van Heerden stated to our representative that the man had
+     represented that he was a friend of the late John Millinborn, but
+     was anxious to get to Canada. He had produced excellent
+     credentials, and Dr. van Heerden, in a spirit of generosity,
+     offered to assist him. At the eleventh hour, however, he was struck
+     with the likeness the man bore to the published description of the
+     missing man in the Millinborn case, and was on the point of
+     telegraphing to the authorities at Liverpool, when he discovered
+     that Jackson had missed the train.
+
+     "The present tragedy points to suicide. The man, it will be
+     remembered, collapsed, and Dr. van Heerden rendered first aid,
+     administering to the man a perfectly harmless drug. The post-mortem
+     examination reveals the presence in the body of a considerable
+     quantity of cyanide of potassium, and the police theory is that
+     this was self-administered before the collapse. In the man's pocket
+     was discovered a number of cyanide tablets.
+
+     "'I am satisfied,' said Dr. van Heerden, 'that the man already
+     contemplated the deed, and when I voiced my suspicions in the
+     palm-court he decided upon the action. The presence in his pocket
+     of cyanide--one of the deadliest and quickest of poisons--suggests
+     that he had the project in his mind. I did not see his action or,
+     of course, I should have stopped him!'"
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell read this account in her room two nights following the
+tragedy and was struck by certain curious inaccuracies, if all that the
+doctor had told her was true.
+
+Mr. Beale read the account, smiled across the table grimly to the
+bearded superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department.
+
+"How does that strike you for ingenuity?" he said, pushing the paper
+over the table.
+
+"I have read it," said the other laconically, "I think we have
+sufficient evidence to arrest van Heerden. The tile from the Grand
+Alliance shows traces of digitalis."
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"The case would fall," he said. "What evidence have you? We did not
+confiscate his medicine-case. He might have dropped a tablet of
+digitalis by accident. The only evidence you could convict van Heerden
+on is proof that he brought with him cyanide tablets which he slipped
+into Prédeaux's pocket. No, we can prove nothing."
+
+"What is your theory in connection with the crime?"
+
+"I have many theories," said Mr. Beale, rising and pacing the room, "and
+one certainty. I am satisfied that Millinborn was killed by Doctor van
+Heerden. He was killed because, during the absence of Mr. Kitson in the
+village, the doctor forced from the dying man a secret which up till
+then he had jealously preserved. When Kitson returned he found his
+friend, as he thought, _in extremis_, and van Heerden also thought that
+John Millinborn would not speak again. To his surprise Millinborn did
+speak and van Heerden, fearful of having his villainy exposed, stabbed
+him to the heart under the pretext of assisting him to lie down.
+
+"Something different occurred at the Grand Alliance Hotel. A man swoons,
+immediately he is picked up by the doctor, who gives him a harmless
+drug--that is to say, harmless in small quantities. In five seconds the
+man is dead. At the inquest we find he has been poisoned--cyanide is
+found in his pocket. And who is this man? Obviously the identical person
+who witnessed the murder of John Millinborn and whom we have been trying
+to find ever since that crime."
+
+"Van Heerden won't escape the third time. His presence will be a little
+more than a coincidence," said the superintendent.
+
+Beale laughed.
+
+"There will be no third time," he said shortly, "van Heerden is not a
+fool."
+
+"Have you any idea what the secret was that he wanted to get from old
+Millinborn?" asked the detective.
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"Yes, I know pretty well," he said, "and in course of time you will
+know, too."
+
+The detective was glancing over the newspaper account.
+
+"I see the jury returned a verdict of 'Suicide whilst of unsound mind!'"
+he said. "This case ought to injure van Heerden, anyway."
+
+"That is where you are wrong," said Beale, stopping in his stride, "van
+Heerden has so manoeuvred the Pressmen that he comes out with an
+enhanced reputation. You will probably find articles in the weekly
+papers written and signed by him, giving his views on the indiscriminate
+sale of poisons. He will move in a glamour of romance, and his
+consulting-rooms will be thronged by new admirers."
+
+"It's a rum case," said the superintendent, rising, "and if you don't
+mind my saying so, Mr. Beale, you're one of the rummiest men that figure
+in it. I can't quite make you out. You are not a policeman and yet we
+have orders from the Foreign Office to give you every assistance. What's
+the game?"
+
+"The biggest game in the world," said Beale promptly, "a game which, if
+it succeeds, will bring misery and suffering to thousands, and will
+bring great businesses tumbling, and set you and your children and your
+children's children working for hundreds of years to pay off a new
+national debt."
+
+"Man alive!" said the other, "are you serious?"
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"I was never more serious in my life," he said, "that is why I don't
+want the police to be too inquisitive in regard to this murder of
+Jackson, whose real name, as I say, is Prédeaux. I can tell you this,
+chief, that you are seeing the development of the most damnable plot
+that has ever been hatched in the brain of the worst miscreant that
+history knows. Sit down again. Do you know what happened last year?" he
+asked.
+
+"Last year?" said the superintendent. "Why, the war ended last year."
+
+"The war ended, Germany was beaten, and had to accept terms humiliating
+for a proud nation, but fortunately for her Prussia was not proud, she
+was merely arrogant. Her worst blow was the impoverishing conditions
+which the Entente Powers imposed. That is to say, they demanded certain
+concessions of territory and money which, added to the enormous interest
+of war stock which the Germans had to pay, promised to cripple Prussia
+for a hundred years."
+
+"Well?" said the detective, when the other had stopped.
+
+"Well?" repeated Beale, with a hard little smile. "Germany is going to
+get that money back."
+
+"War?"
+
+Beale laughed.
+
+"No, nothing so foolish as war. Germany has had all the war she wants.
+Oh no, there'll be no war. Do you imagine that we should go to war
+because I came to the Foreign Office with a crazy story. I can tell you
+this, that officially the German Government have no knowledge of this
+plot and are quite willing to repudiate those people who are engaged in
+it. Indeed, if the truth be told, the Government has not contributed a
+single mark to bring the scheme to fruition, but when it is working all
+the money required will be instantly found. At present the inventor of
+this delightful little scheme finds himself with insufficient capital to
+go ahead. It is his intention to secure that capital. There are many
+ways by which this can be done. He has already borrowed £40,000 from
+White, of Punsonby's."
+
+Superintendent McNorton whistled.
+
+"There are other ways," Beale went on, "and he is at liberty to try them
+all except one. The day he secures control of that fortune, that day I
+shoot him."
+
+"The deuce you will?" said the startled Mr. McNorton.
+
+"The deuce I will," repeated Beale.
+
+There was a tap at the door and McNorton rose.
+
+"Don't go," said Beale, "I would like to introduce you to this
+gentleman."
+
+He opened the door and a grey-haired man with a lean, ascetic face came
+in.
+
+Beale closed the door behind him and led the way to the dining-room.
+
+"Mr. Kitson, I should like you to know Superintendent McNorton."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"Well?" said Kitson, "our medical friend seems to have got away with
+it." He sat at the table, nervously drumming with his fingers. "Does the
+superintendent know everything?"
+
+"Nearly everything," replied Beale.
+
+"Nearly everything," repeated the superintendent with a smile, "except
+this great Green Rust business. There I admit I am puzzled."
+
+"Even I know nothing about that," said Kitson, looking curiously at
+Beale. "I suppose one of these days you will tell us all about it. It is
+a discovery Mr. Beale happed upon whilst he was engaged in protecting
+Miss----" He looked at Beale and Beale nodded--"Miss Cresswell," said
+Kitson.
+
+"The lady who was present at the murder of Jackson?"
+
+"There is no reason why we should not take you into our confidence, the
+more so since the necessity for secrecy is rapidly passing. Miss Oliva
+Cresswell is the niece of John Millinborn. Her mother married a scamp
+who called himself Cresswell but whose real name was Prédeaux. He first
+spent every penny she had and then left her and her infant child."
+
+"Prédeaux!" cried the detective. "Why you told me that was Jackson's
+real name."
+
+"Jackson, or Prédeaux, was her father," said Kitson, "it was believed
+that he was dead; but after John Millinborn's death I set inquiries on
+foot and discovered that he had been serving a life sentence in Cayenne
+and had been released when the French President proclaimed a general
+amnesty at the close of the war. He was evidently on his way to see John
+Millinborn the day my unhappy friend was murdered, and it was the
+recognition of his daughter in the palm-court of the Grand Alliance
+which produced a fainting-fit to which he was subject."
+
+"But how could he recognize the daughter? Had he seen her before?"
+
+For answer Kitson took from his pocket a leather folder and opened it.
+There were two photographs. One of a beautiful woman in the fashion of
+25 years before; and one a snapshot of a girl in a modern costume, whom
+McNorton had no difficulty in recognizing as Oliva Cresswell.
+
+"Yes," he said, "they might be the same person."
+
+"That's the mother on the left," explained Kitson, "the resemblance is
+remarkable. When Jackson saw the girl he called her Mary--that was his
+wife's name. Millinborn left the whole of his fortune to Miss Cresswell,
+but he placed upon me a solemn charge that she was not to benefit or to
+know of her inheritance until she was married. He had a horror of
+fortune-hunters. This was the secret which van Heerden surprised--I fear
+with violence--from poor John as he lay dying. Since then he has been
+plotting to marry the girl. To do him justice, I believe that the
+cold-blooded hound has no other wish than to secure her money. His
+acquaintance with White, who is on the verge of ruin, enabled him to get
+to know the girl. He persuaded her to come here and a flat was found for
+her. Partly," said the lawyer dryly, "because this block of flats
+happens to be her own property and the lady who is supposed to be the
+landlady is a nominee of mine."
+
+"And I suppose that explains Mr. Beale," smiled the inspector.
+
+"That explains Mr. Beale," said Kitson, "whom I brought from New York
+especially to shadow van Heerden and to protect the girl. In the course
+of investigations Mr. Beale has made another discovery, the particulars
+of which I do not know."
+
+There was a little pause.
+
+"Why not tell the girl?" said the superintendent.
+
+Kitson shook his head.
+
+"I have thought it out, and to tell the girl would be tantamount to
+breaking my faith with John Millinborn. No, I must simply shepherd her.
+The first step we must take"--he turned to Beale--"is to get her away
+from this place. Can't you shift your offices to--say New York?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"I can and I can't," he said. "If you will forgive my saying so, the
+matter of the Green Rust is of infinitely greater importance than Miss
+Cresswell's safety."
+
+James Kitson frowned.
+
+"I don't like to hear you say that, Beale."
+
+"I don't like hearing myself say it," confessed the other, "but let me
+put it this way. I believe by staying here I can afford her greater
+protection and at the same time put a spoke in the wheel of Mr. van
+Heerden's larger scheme."
+
+Kitson pinched his lips thoughtfully.
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he said. "Now I want to see this young lady,
+that is why I have come. I suppose there will be no difficulty?"
+
+"None at all, I think," said Beale. "I will tell her that you are
+interested in the work she is doing. I might introduce you as Mr.
+Scobbs," he smiled.
+
+"Who is Scobbs?"
+
+"He is a proprietor of a series of hotels in Western Canada, and is, I
+should imagine, a most praiseworthy and inoffensive captain of minor
+industry, but Miss Cresswell is rather interested in him," he laughed.
+"She found the name occurring in Canadian guide-books and was struck by
+its quaintness."
+
+"Scobbs," said the lawyer slowly. "I seem to know that name."
+
+"You had better know it if I am going to introduce you as Scobbs
+himself," laughed Beale.
+
+"Shall I be in the way?" asked the superintendent.
+
+"No, please stay," said Beale. "I would like you to see this lady. We
+may want your official assistance one of these days to get her out of a
+scrape."
+
+Mr. Beale passed out of the flat and pressed the bell of the door next
+to his. There was no response. He pressed it again after an interval,
+and stepped back to look at the fanlight. No light showed and he took
+out his watch. It was nine o'clock. He had not seen the girl all day,
+having been present at the inquest, but he had heard her door close two
+hours before. No reply came to his second ring, and he went back to his
+flat.
+
+"She's out," he said. "I don't quite understand it. I particularly
+requested her yesterday not to go out after dark for a day or two."
+
+He walked into his bedroom and opened the window. The light of day was
+still in the sky, but he took a small electric lamp to guide him along
+the narrow steel balcony which connected all the flats with the
+fire-escape. He found her window closed and bolted, but with the skill
+of a professional burglar he unfastened the catch and stepped inside.
+
+The room was in darkness. He switched on the light and glanced round. It
+was Oliva's bedroom, and her workday hat and coat were lying on the bed.
+He opened the long cupboard where she kept her limited wardrobe. He
+knew, because it was his business to know, every dress she possessed.
+They were all there as, also, were the three hats which she kept on a
+shelf. All the drawers of the bureau were closed and there was no sign
+of any disorder such as might be expected if she had changed and gone
+out. He opened the door of the bedroom and walked into the sitting-room,
+lighting his way across to the electric switch by means of his lamp.
+
+The moment the light flooded the room he realized that something was
+wrong. There was no disorder, but the room conveyed in some
+indescribable manner a suggestion of violence. An object on the floor
+attracted his attention and he stooped and picked it up. It was a shoe,
+and the strap which had held it in place was broken. He looked at it,
+slipped it in his pocket and passed rapidly through the other rooms to
+the little kitchen and the tiny bath-room, put on the light in the hall
+and made a careful scrutiny of the walls and the floor.
+
+The mat was twisted out of its place, and on the left side of the wall
+there were two long scratches. There was a faint sickly odour.
+
+"Ether," he noted mentally.
+
+He went quickly into the dining-room. The little bureau-desk was open
+and a letter half-finished was lying on the pad, and it was addressed to
+him and ran:
+
+
+     "DEAR MR. BEALE,--
+
+     Circumstances beyond my control make it necessary for me to leave
+     to-night for Liverpool."
+
+
+That was all. It was obviously half finished. He picked it up, folded it
+carefully and slipped it in his pocket. Then he returned to the hall,
+opened the door and passed out.
+
+He explained briefly what had happened and crossed to the doctor's flat,
+and rang the bell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A FRUITLESS SEARCH
+
+
+A light glowed in the hall, the door was opened and the doctor, in
+slippers and velvet coat, stood in the entrance. He showed no resentment
+nor did he have time to show it.
+
+"I want a word with you," said Beale.
+
+"Twenty if you wish," said the doctor cheerfully. "Won't you come in?"
+
+Beale was half-way in before the invitation was issued and followed the
+doctor to his study.
+
+"Are you alone?" he asked.
+
+"Quite alone. I have very few visitors. In fact, my last visitor was
+that unhappy man Jackson."
+
+"When did you see Miss Cresswell last?"
+
+The doctor raised his eyebrows.
+
+"By what right----?" he began.
+
+"Cut all that out," said Beale roughly. "When did you see Miss Cresswell
+last?"
+
+"I have not seen her to-day," said the doctor. "I have not been out of
+my flat since I came back from the inquest."
+
+"I should like to search your flat," said Beale.
+
+"Policeman, eh?" smiled the doctor. "Certainly you can search the flat
+if you have a warrant."
+
+"I have no warrant, but I shall search your flat."
+
+The doctor's face went dull red.
+
+"I suppose you know you are liable to an action for trespass?"
+
+"I know all about that," said Beale, "but if you have nothing to
+conceal, Dr. van Heerden, I don't see why you should object."
+
+"I don't object," shrugged the doctor, "search by all means. Where would
+you like to start? Here?"
+
+He pointed to three upright cases which stood at the end of the room
+nearest the door.
+
+"You will see nothing very pleasant here, they are anatomical models
+which have just arrived from Berlin. In fact, I have been trading with
+the enemy," he smiled. "They are screwed up, but I have a screwdriver
+here."
+
+Beale hesitated.
+
+"There is only another room," the doctor went on, "my bedroom, but you
+will not find her there."
+
+Beale twisted round like lightning.
+
+"Her?" he asked. "Who said Her?"
+
+"I gather you are looking for Miss Cresswell," said the doctor coolly.
+"You are searching for something, and you ask me when I saw her last.
+Who else could you be looking for?"
+
+"Quite right," he said quietly.
+
+"Let me show you the way." The doctor walked ahead and turned on the
+light in the inner bedroom.
+
+It was a large apartment, simply furnished with a small steel bed, a
+hanging wardrobe and a dressing-chest. Beyond that was his bath-room.
+
+Beale was making a casual survey of this when he heard the door of the
+bedroom click behind him. He turned round, jumped for the door, turned
+the handle and pulled, but it did not yield. As he did so he thought he
+heard a mutter of voices.
+
+"Open the door!" he cried, hammering on the panel.
+
+There was no answer. Then:
+
+"Mr. Beale!"
+
+His blood froze at the wild appeal in the tone, for it was the voice of
+Oliva Cresswell, and it came from the room he had quitted.
+
+He smashed at the panel but it was made of tough oak. His revolver was
+in his hand and the muzzle was against the lock when the handle turned
+and the door opened.
+
+"Did you lock yourself in?" smiled the doctor, looking blandly at the
+other's pale face.
+
+"Where is the girl, where is Miss Cresswell?" he demanded. "I heard her
+voice."
+
+"You are mad, my friend."
+
+"Where is Miss Cresswell?"
+
+His hand dropped on the other's shoulder and gripped it with a force
+that made the other shrink. With an oath the doctor flung him off.
+
+"Hang you, you madman! How should I know?"
+
+"I heard her voice."
+
+"It was imagination," said the doctor. "I would have opened the door to
+you before but I had walked out into the passage and had rung Miss
+Cresswell's bell. I found the door open. I suppose you had been in. I
+just shut the door and came back here."
+
+Without a word Beale thrust him aside. He had taken one step to the door
+when he stopped: At the end of the room had been the three long
+anatomical cases. Now there were only two. One had gone. He did not stop
+to question the man. He bounded through the door and raced down the
+stairs. There was no vehicle in sight and only a few pedestrians. At the
+corner of the street he found a policeman who had witnessed nothing
+unusual and had not seen any conveyance carrying a box.
+
+As he returned slowly to the entrance of Krooman Mansions something made
+him look up. The doctor was leaning out of the window smoking a cigar.
+
+"Found her?" he asked mockingly.
+
+Beale made no reply. He came up the stairs, walked straight through the
+open door of the doctor's flat and confronted that calm man as he leant
+against the table, his hands gripping the edge, a cigar in the corner of
+his mouth and a smile of quiet amusement on his bearded lips.
+
+"Well?" he asked, "did you find her?"
+
+"I did not find her, but I am satisfied that _you_ will."
+
+Van Heerden's eyes did not falter.
+
+"I am beginning to think, Mr. Beale, that over-indulgence in alcoholic
+stimulants has turned your brain," he said mockingly. "You come into my
+apartment and demand, with an heroic gesture, where I am concealing a
+beautiful young lady, in whose welfare I am at least as much interested
+as you, since that lady is my fiancée and is going to be my wife."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"She is going to be your wife, is she?" said Beale softly. "I
+congratulate you if I cannot congratulate her. And when is this
+interesting engagement to be announced?"
+
+"It is announced at this moment," said the doctor. "The lady is on her
+way to Liverpool, where she will stay with an aunt of mine. You need not
+trouble to ask me for her address, because I shall not give it to you."
+
+"I see," said Beale.
+
+"You come in here, I repeat, demanding with all the gesture and voice of
+melodrama, the hiding-place of my fiancée,"--he enunciated the two last
+words with great relish--"you ask to search my rooms and I give you
+permission. You lock yourself in through your own carelessness and when
+I release you you have a revolver in your hand, and are even more
+melodramatic than ever. I know what you are going to say----"
+
+"You are a clever man," interrupted Beale, "for I don't know myself."
+
+"You were going to say, or you think, that I have some sinister purpose
+in concealing this lady. Well, to resume my narrative, and to show you
+your conduct from my point of view, I no sooner release you than you
+stare like a lunatic at my anatomical cases and dash wildly out, to
+return full of menace in your tone and attitude. Why?"
+
+"Doctor van Heerden, when I came into your flat there were three
+anatomical cases at the end of that room. When I came out there were
+two. What happened to the third whilst I was locked in the room?"
+
+Doctor van Heerden shook his head pityingly.
+
+"I am afraid, I am very much afraid, that you are not right in your
+head," he said, and nodded toward the place where the cases stood.
+
+Beale followed the direction of his head and gasped, for there were
+three cases.
+
+"I admit that I deceived you when I said they contained specimens. As a
+matter of fact, they are empty," said the doctor. "If you like to
+inspect them, you can. You may find some--clue!"
+
+Beale wanted no invitation. He walked to the cases one by one and
+sounded them. Their lids were screwed on but the screws were dummies. He
+found in the side of each a minute hole under the cover of the lid and,
+taking out his knife, he pressed in the bodkin with which the knife was
+equipped and with a click the lid flew open. The box was empty. The
+second one answered the same test and was also empty. The third gave no
+better result. He flashed his lamp on the bottom of the box, but there
+was no trace of footmarks.
+
+"Are you satisfied?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Far from satisfied," said Beale, and with no other word he walked out
+and down the stairs again.
+
+Half-way down he saw something lying on one of the stairs and picked it
+up. It was a shoe, the fellow of that which he had in his pocket, and it
+had not been there when he came up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oliva Cresswell had read the story of the crime in the _Post Record_,
+had folded up the paper with a little shiver and was at her tiny
+writing-bureau when a knock came at the door. It was Dr. van Heerden.
+
+"Can I come in for a moment?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"I shan't eat you," he smiled, "but I am so distressed by what has
+happened and I feel that an explanation is due to you."
+
+"I shouldn't trouble about that," she smiled, "but if you want to come
+in, please do."
+
+She closed the door behind him and left the light burning in the hall.
+She did not ask him to sit down.
+
+"You have seen the account in the _Post Record_?" he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"And I suppose you are rather struck with the discrepancy between what I
+told you and what I told the reporters, but I feel you ought to know
+that I had a very special reason for protecting this man."
+
+"Of that I have no doubt," she said coldly.
+
+"Miss Cresswell, you must be patient and kind to me," he said earnestly.
+"I have devoted a great deal of time and I have run very considerable
+dangers in order to save you."
+
+"To save me?" she repeated in surprise.
+
+"Miss Cresswell," he asked, "did you ever know your father?"
+
+She shook her head, so impressed by the gravity of his tone that she did
+not cut the conversation short as she had intended.
+
+"No," she said, "I was a girl when he died. I know nothing of him. Even
+his own people who brought him up never spoke of him."
+
+"Are you sure he is dead?" he asked.
+
+"Sure? I have never doubted it. Why do you ask me? Is he alive?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"What I am going to tell you will be rather painful," he said: "your
+father was a notorious swindler." He paused, but she did not protest.
+
+In her life she had heard many hints which did not redound to her
+father's credit, and she had purposely refrained from pursuing her
+inquiries.
+
+"Some time ago your father escaped from Cayenne. He is, you will be
+surprised to know, a French subject, and the police have been searching
+for him for twelve months, including our friend Mr. Beale."
+
+"It isn't true," she flamed. "How dare you suggest----?"
+
+"I am merely telling you the facts, Miss Cresswell, and you must judge
+them for yourself," said the doctor. "Your father robbed a bank in
+France and hid the money in England. Because they knew that sooner or
+later he would send for you the police have been watching you day and
+night. Your father is at Liverpool. I had a letter from him this
+morning. He is dying and he begs you to go to him."
+
+She sat at the table, stunned. There was in this story a hideous
+probability. Her first inclination was to consult Beale, but instantly
+she saw that if what the doctor had said was true such a course would be
+fatal.
+
+"How do I know you are speaking the truth?" she asked.
+
+"You cannot know until you have seen your father," he said. "It is a
+very simple matter."
+
+He took from his pocket an envelope and laid it before her.
+
+"Here is the address--64 Hope Street. I advise you to commit it to
+memory and tear it up. After all, what possible interest could I have in
+your going to Liverpool, or anywhere else for the matter of that?"
+
+"When is the next train?" she asked.
+
+"One leaves in an hour from Euston."
+
+She thought a moment.
+
+"I'll go," she said decidedly.
+
+She was walking back to her room to put on her coat when he called her
+back.
+
+"There's no reason in the world why you should not write to Beale to
+tell him where you have gone," he said. "You can leave a note with me
+and I will deliver it."
+
+She hesitated again, sat down at her desk and scribbled the few lines
+which Beale had found. Then she twisted round in her chair in
+perplexity.
+
+"I don't understand it all," she said. "If Mr. Beale is on the track of
+my father, surely he will understand from this letter that I have gone
+to meet him."
+
+"Let me see what you have written," said van Heerden coolly, and looked
+over her shoulder. "Yes, that's enough," he said.
+
+"Enough?"
+
+"Quite enough. You see, my idea was that you should write sufficient to
+put him off the track."
+
+"I don't understand you--there's somebody in the passage," she said
+suddenly, and was walking to the door leading to the hall when he
+intercepted her.
+
+"Miss Cresswell, I think you will understand me when I tell you that
+your father is dead, that the story I have told you about Beale being on
+his track is quite untrue, and that it is necessary for a purpose which
+I will not disclose to you that you should be my wife."
+
+She sprang back out of his reach, white as death. Instinctively she
+realized that she was in some terrible danger, and the knowledge turned
+her cold.
+
+"Your wife?" she repeated. "I think you must be mad, doctor."
+
+"On the contrary, I am perfectly sane. I would have asked you before,
+but I knew that you would refuse me. Had our friend Beale not
+interfered, the course of true love might have run a little more
+smoothly than it has. Now I am going to speak plainly to you, Miss
+Cresswell. It is necessary that I should marry you, and if you agree I
+shall take you away and place you in safe keeping. I will marry you at
+the registrar's office and part from you the moment the ceremony is
+completed. I will agree to allow you a thousand a year and I will
+promise that I will not interfere with you or in any way seek your
+society."
+
+Her courage had revived during this recital of her future.
+
+"What do you expect me to do," she asked contemptuously--"fall on your
+neck and thank you, you with your thousand a year and your church-door
+partings? No, doctor, if you are sane then you are either a great fool
+or a great scoundrel. I would never dream of marrying you under any
+circumstances. And now I think you had better go."
+
+This time he did not stop her as she walked to the door and flung it
+open. She started back with an exclamation of fear, for there were two
+men in the hall.
+
+"What do you----"
+
+So far she got when the doctor's arm was round her and his hand was
+pressed against her mouth. One of the men was carrying what looked like
+a rubber bottle with a conical-shaped mouthpiece. She struggled, but the
+doctor held her in a grip of steel. She was thrown to the ground, the
+rubber cap of the bottle was pressed over her face, there came a rush of
+cold air heavily charged with a sickly scent, and she felt life slipping
+away....
+
+"I think she's off now," said the doctor, lifting up her eyelid, "see if
+the coast is clear, Gregory, and open the door of my flat."
+
+The man departed. The doctor lifted the unconscious girl in his arms. He
+was in the hall when he felt her move. Half-conscious as she was, she
+was struggling to prevent the abduction.
+
+"Quick, the door!" he gasped.
+
+He carried her across the landing into his room, and the door closed
+quietly behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE HOUSE NEAR STAINES
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell remembered nothing. She did not remember being thrust
+limply into a long narrow box, nor hearing Beale's voice, nor the click
+of the door that fastened him in Dr. van Heerden's bedroom. If she cried
+out, as she did, she had no recollection of the fact.
+
+"Carry her, box and all, to her flat. The door is open," whispered van
+Heerden to the two men who had made their lightning disappearance into
+the anatomical cases at the sound of Beale's knock.
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+"Wait till I come to you. Hurry!"
+
+They crossed the landing and passed through the open door of Oliva's
+flat and the doctor closed the door behind them and returned in time to
+release the savage Beale.
+
+He watched him racing down the stairs, darted to the door of Oliva's
+rooms, opened it and went in. In ten seconds she had been lifted from
+her narrow prison and laid on her bed, the box had been returned to the
+place where it had stood in the doctor's study and the men had returned
+to join van Heerden in Oliva's darkened sitting-room.
+
+Van Heerden had switched on the light in the girl's room and then
+noticed for the first time that one of her shoes was missing. Quickly he
+slipped off the remaining shoe.
+
+"You wait here," he told the men, "until you hear Beale return. Then
+make your escape. On your way down leave the shoe on the stairs. It will
+help to put our friend off the trail."
+
+Half an hour after the discovery of the shoe on the stairs Beale went
+out accompanied by his visitors.
+
+The doctor watched the dark figures disappear into the night from the
+window of his sitting-room and made his way back to the girl's flat. She
+was lying where he had left her, feeling dizzy and sick. Her eyes closed
+in a little grimace of distaste as he put on the light.
+
+"How does my little friend feel now?" he asked coolly.
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Really, you must not sulk," he said chidingly, "and you must get used
+to being polite because you are going to see a great deal of me. You had
+better get up and put your coat on."
+
+She noticed that he had a medicine glass in his hand, half-filled with a
+milky-white liquor.
+
+"Drink this," he said.
+
+She pushed it away.
+
+"Come, drink it," he said, "you don't suppose I want to poison you, do
+you? I don't even want to drug you, otherwise it would have been simple
+to have given you a little more ether. Drink it. It will take that hazy
+feeling out of your head."
+
+She took the glass with an unsteady hand and swallowed its contents. It
+was bitter and hot and burnt her throat, but its effects were magical.
+In three minutes her mind had cleared and when she sat up she could do
+so without her head swimming.
+
+"You will now put on your coat and hat, pack a few things that you want
+for a journey, and come along with me."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the sort," she said, "I advise you to go, Dr. van
+Heerden, before I inform the police of your outrageous conduct."
+
+"Put on your hat and coat," he repeated calmly, "and don't talk
+nonsense. You don't suppose that I have risked all that I have risked to
+let you go at this hour."
+
+"Dr. van Heerden," she said, "if you have any spark of decency or
+manhood you will leave me."
+
+He laughed a little.
+
+"Now you are talking like a heroine of Lyceum drama," he said. "Any
+appeal you might make, Miss Cresswell, is a waste of time and a waste of
+breath. I shall have no hesitation in using violence of the most
+unpleasant character unless you do as I tell you."
+
+His voice was quiet, but there was about him a convincing air of
+purpose.
+
+"Where are you going to take me?" she asked.
+
+"I am going to take you to a place of safety. When I say safety," he
+added, "I mean safety for me. You yourself need fear nothing unless you
+act foolishly, in which case you have everything to fear. Disabuse your
+mind of one thought, Miss Cresswell," he said, "and that is that I am in
+love with you and that there is any quality or charm in your admirable
+person which would prevent my cutting your throat if it was necessary
+for my safety. I am not a brute. I will treat you decently, as well as
+any lady could wish to be treated, if you do not cross me, but I warn
+you that if in the street you call for help or attempt to escape you
+will never know what happened to you."
+
+She stood at the end of her bed, one hand gripping the rail, her white
+teeth showing against the red lower lip.
+
+"Don't bite your lips, it does not stimulate thought, I can tell you
+that as a medical man, and I can also tell you that this is not the
+moment for you to consider plans for outwitting me. Get your coat and
+hat on."
+
+His voice was now peremptory, and she obeyed. In a few minutes she was
+dressed ready for the street. He led the way out and holding her arm
+lightly they passed out into the street. He turned sharply to the left,
+the girl keeping in step by his side. To the casual observer, and few
+could observe them in the gloom of the ill-lit thoroughfares through
+which they passed, they were a couple on affectionate terms, but the arm
+locked in hers was the arm of a gaoler, and once when they stood waiting
+to cross busy Oxford Circus, and she had seen a policeman a few yards
+away and had cautiously tried to slip her arm from his, she found her
+wrist gripped with a hand of steel.
+
+At the Marylebone Road end of Portland Place a car was waiting and the
+doctor opened the door and pushed her in, following immediately.
+
+"I had to keep the car some distance from Krooman Mansions or Beale
+would have spotted it immediately," he said in an easy conversational
+tone.
+
+"Where are you taking me?" she asked.
+
+"To a highly desirable residence in the Thames Valley," he said, "in the
+days when I thought you might be wooed and wed, as the saying goes, I
+thought it might make an excellent place for a honeymoon." He felt her
+shrink from him.
+
+"Please don't be distressed, I am rather glad that matters have turned
+out as they have. I do not like women very much, and I should have been
+inexpressibly bored if I had to keep up the fiction of being in love
+with you."
+
+"What do you intend doing?" she asked. "You cannot hope to escape from
+Mr. Beale. He will find me."
+
+He chuckled.
+
+"As a sleuth-hound, Mr. Beale has his points," he said, "but they are
+not points which keep me awake at night. I have always suspected he was
+a detective, and, of course, it was he who planted the registered
+envelopes on poor old White--that was clever," he admitted handsomely,
+"but Beale, if you will excuse my hurting your feelings--and I know you
+are half in love with him----"
+
+She felt her face go hot.
+
+"How dare you!" she flamed.
+
+"Don't be silly," he begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances,
+the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself
+entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much
+faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular
+police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who
+figure in divorce cases."
+
+She did not reply. Inwardly she was boiling, and she recognized with a
+little feeling of dismay that it was not so much the indignity which he
+was offering her, as his undisguised contempt for the genius of Beale,
+which enraged her.
+
+They had left the town and were spinning through the country when she
+spoke again.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to tell me what you intend doing?"
+
+He had fallen into a reverie and it was evidently a pleasant reverie,
+for he came back to the realities of life with an air of reluctance.
+
+"Eh? Oh, what am I going to do with you? Why, I am going to marry you."
+
+"Suppose I refuse?"
+
+"You won't refuse. I am offering you the easiest way out. When you are
+married to me your danger is at an end. Until you marry me your hold on
+life is somewhat precarious."
+
+"But why do you insist upon this?" she asked, bewildered, "If you don't
+love me, what is there in marriage for you? There are plenty of women
+who would be delighted to have you. Why should you want to marry a girl
+without any influence or position--a shop-girl, absolutely penniless?"
+
+"It's a whim of mine," he said lightly, "and it's a whim I mean to
+gratify."
+
+"Suppose I refuse at the last moment?"
+
+"Then," he said significantly, "you will be sorry. I tell you, no harm
+is coming to you if you are sensible. If you are not sensible, imagine
+the worst that can happen to you, and that will be the least. I will
+treat you so that you will not think of your experience, let alone talk
+of it."
+
+There was a cold malignity in his voice that made her shudder. For a
+moment, and a moment only, she was beaten down by the horrible
+hopelessness of her situation, then her natural courage, her
+indomitable, self-reliance overcame fear. If he expected an outburst of
+anger and incoherent reproach, or if he expected her to break down into
+hysterical supplication, he was disappointed. She had a firm grip upon
+herself, perfect command of voice and words.
+
+"I suppose you are one of those clever criminals one reads about," she
+said, "prepared for all emergencies, perfectly self-confident, capable
+and satisfied that there is nobody quite so clever as themselves."
+
+"Very likely," he smiled. "It is a form of egotism," he said quietly. "I
+read a book once about criminals. It was written by an Italian and he
+said that was the chief characteristic of them all."
+
+"Vanity? And they always do such clever things and such stupid things at
+the same time, and their beautiful plans are so full of absurd
+miscalculations, just as yours are."
+
+"Just as mine are," he said mockingly.
+
+"Just as yours are," she repeated; "you are so satisfied that because
+you are educated and you are a scientist, that you are ever so much more
+clever than all the rest of the world."
+
+"Go on," he said. "I like to hear you talking. Your analysis is nearly
+perfect and certainly there is a lot of truth in what you say."
+
+She held down the surging anger which almost choked her and retained a
+calm level. Sooner or later she would find the joint in his harness.
+
+"I suppose you have everything ready?"
+
+"My staff work is always good," he murmured, "marriage licence, parson,
+even the place where you will spend your solitary honeymoon after
+signing a few documents."
+
+She turned toward him slowly. Against the window of the big limousine
+his head was faintly outlined and she imagined the smile which was on
+his face at that moment.
+
+"So that is it!" she said. "I must sign a few documents saying that I
+married you of my own free will!"
+
+"No, madam," he said, "the circumstances under which you marry me
+require no justification and that doesn't worry me in the slightest."
+
+"What documents have I to sign?" she asked.
+
+"You will discover in time," said he. "Here is the house, unless my
+eyesight has gone wrong."
+
+The car turned from the road, seemed to plunge into a high hedge, though
+in reality, as the girl saw for a second as the lamps caught the stone
+gate-posts, it was the entrance to a drive, and presently came to a stop
+before a big rambling house. Van Heerden jumped down and assisted her to
+alight. The house was in darkness, but as they reached the door it was
+opened.
+
+"Go in," said van Heerden, and pushed her ahead.
+
+She found herself in an old-fashioned hall, the walls panelled of oak,
+the floor made of closely mortised stone flags. She recognized the man
+who had admitted them as one of those she had seen in her flat that same
+night. He was a cadaverous man with high cheekbones and short, bristly
+black hair and a tiny black moustache.
+
+"I won't introduce you," said the doctor, "but you may call this man
+Gregory. It is not his name, but it is good enough."
+
+The man smiled furtively and eyed her furtively, took up the candle and
+led the way to a room which opened off the hall at the farther end.
+
+"This is the dining-room," said van Heerden. "It is chiefly interesting
+to you as the place where the ceremony will be performed. Your room is
+immediately above. I am sorry I did not engage a maid for you, but I
+cannot afford to observe the proprieties or consider your reputation.
+The fact is, I know no woman I could trust to perform that duty, and
+you will have to look after yourself."
+
+He led the way upstairs, unlocked a door and passed in. There was one
+window which was heavily curtained. He saw her glance and nodded.
+
+"You will find the windows barred," he said. "This was evidently the
+nursery and is admirably suited to my purpose. In addition, I might tell
+you that the house is a very old one and that it is impossible to walk
+about the room without the door creaking and, as I spend most of my time
+in the dining-room below, you will find it extremely difficult even to
+make preparations for escape without my being aware of the fact."
+
+The room was comfortably furnished. A small fire was alight in the tiny
+grate and a table had been laid, on which were displayed sandwiches, a
+thermos flask and a small silver basket of confectionery.
+
+There was a door by the big four-poster bed.
+
+"You may consider yourself fortunate in having the only room in the
+house with a bath-room attached," he said. "You English people are
+rather particular about that kind of thing."
+
+"And you German people aren't," she said coolly.
+
+"German?" he laughed. "So you guessed that, did you?"
+
+"Guessed it?"--it was her turn to laugh scornfully. "Isn't the fact
+self-evident? Who but a Hun----"
+
+His face went a dull red.
+
+"That is a word you must not use to me," he said roughly--"hang your
+arrogance! Huns! We, who gave the world its kultur, who lead in every
+department of science, art and literature!"
+
+She stared at him in amazement.
+
+"You are joking, of course," she said, forgetting her danger for the
+moment in face of this extraordinary phenomenon. "If you are a German,
+and I suppose you are, and an educated German at that, you don't for a
+moment imagine you gave the world anything. Why, the Germans have never
+been anything but exploiters of other men's brains."
+
+From dull red, his face had gone white, his lip was trembling with
+passion and when he spoke he could scarcely control his voice.
+
+"We were of all people ordained by God to save the world through the
+German spirit."
+
+So far he got when she burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It
+was so like all the caricatures of German character she had read or seen
+depicted. He looked at her, his face distorted with rage, and before she
+had realized what had happened he had raised his hand and struck her
+across the mouth.
+
+She staggered back, speechless. To her had happened the most incredible
+thing in the world, more incredible than her abduction, more incredible
+than all the villainies known or suspected, in this man.
+
+He stood there glowering at her, unrepentant, half-tempted, it seemed,
+to repeat the blow. He had struck a woman and was not overwhelmed by
+shame. All her views of men and things, all her conceptions of the codes
+which govern mankind in their dealings one with the other, crumbled
+away. If he had fallen on his knees and asked her pardon, if he had
+shown any contrition, any fear, any shame, she might have gone back to
+her old standards.
+
+"You swine cat!" he said in German, "Herr Gott, but I will punish you if
+you laugh at me!"
+
+She was staring at him in intense curiosity. Her lip was bleeding a
+little, the red mark of his fingers showed against her white face, but
+she seemed to have forgotten the pain or the shock of the actual blow
+and was wholly concerned in this new revelation.
+
+"A Hun," she said, but she seemed to be speaking to herself, "of course
+he's a Hun. They do that sort of thing, but I never believed it before."
+
+He took a step toward her, but she did not flinch, and he turned and
+walked quickly from the room, locking the door behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+INTRODUCING PARSON HOMO
+
+
+When Beale left Krooman Mansions with his two companions he had only the
+haziest idea as to where he should begin his search. Perhaps the
+personal interest he had in his client, an interest revealed by the
+momentary panic into which her disappearance had thrown this usually
+collected young man, clouded his better judgment.
+
+A vague discomfort possessed him and he paused irresolutely at the
+corner of the street. There was a chance that she might still be
+concealed in the building, but a greater chance that if he followed one
+of the three plans which were rapidly forming in his mind he might save
+the girl from whatever danger threatened her.
+
+"You are perfectly sure you heard her voice?"
+
+"Certain," replied Beale shortly, "just as I am sure that I smelt the
+ether."
+
+"She may have been using it for some other purpose. Women put these
+drugs to all sorts of weird purposes, like cleaning gloves, and----"
+
+"That may be," interrupted Beale, "but I wasn't mistaken about her
+voice. I am not subject to illusions of that kind."
+
+He whistled. A man who had been lurking in the shadow of a building on
+the opposite side of the road crossed to him.
+
+"Fenson," said Beale, "watch these flats. If you see a car drive up just
+go along and stand in front of the door. Don't let anybody enter that
+car or carry any bundle into that car until you are sure that Miss
+Cresswell is not one of the party or the bundle. If necessary you can
+pull a gun--I know it isn't done in law-abiding London," he smiled at
+Superintendent McNorton, "but I guess you've got to let me do a little
+law-breaking."
+
+"Go all the way," said the superintendent easily.
+
+"That will do, Fenson. You know Miss Cresswell?"
+
+"Sure, sir," said the man, and melted back into the shadows.
+
+"Where are you going now?" asked Kitson.
+
+"I am going to interview a gentleman who will probably give me a great
+deal of information about van Heerden's other residences."
+
+"Has he many?" asked Kitson, in surprise.
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"He has been hiring buildings and houses for the past three months," he
+said quietly, "and he has been so clever that I will defy you to trace
+one of them. All his hiring has been done through various lawyers he has
+employed, and they are all taken in fictitious names."
+
+"Do you know any of them?"
+
+"Not one," said Beale, with a baffled little laugh, "didn't I tell you
+he's mighty clever? I got track of two of them but they were the only
+two where the sale didn't go through."
+
+"What does he want houses for?"
+
+"We shall learn one of these days," said Beale cryptically. "I can tell
+you something else, gentlemen, and this is more of a suspicion than a
+certainty, that there is not a crank scientist who has ever gone under
+through drink or crime in the whole of this country, aye, and America
+and France, too, that isn't working for him. And now, gentlemen, if you
+will excuse me----"
+
+"You don't want any assistance?" asked the superintendent.
+
+"I guess not," said Beale, with a smile, "I guess I can manage the Herr
+Professor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the south side of the River Thames is a congested and thickly
+populated area lying between the Waterloo and the Blackfriars Roads.
+Here old houses, which are gauntly picturesque because of their age,
+stand cheek-by-jowl with great blocks of model dwellings, which make up
+in utility all that they lack in beauty. Such dwelling-places have a
+double advantage. Their rent is low and they are close to the centre of
+London. Few of the houses are occupied by one family, and indeed it is
+the exception that one family rents in its entirety so much as a floor.
+
+In a basement room in one of those houses sat two men as unlike one
+another as it is possible to conceive. The room itself was strangely
+tidy and bare of anything but the necessary furniture. A camp bed was
+under the window in such a position as to give its occupant a view of
+the ankles of those people who trod the pavement of the little street.
+
+A faded cretonne curtain hid an inner and probably a smaller room where
+the elder of the men slept. They sat on either side of a table, a
+kerosene lamp placed exactly in the centre supplying light for their
+various occupations.
+
+The elder of the two was bent forward over a microscope, his big hands
+adjusting the focus screw. Presently he would break off his work of
+observation and jot down a few notes in crabbed German characters. His
+big head, his squat body, his long ungainly arms, his pale face with its
+little wisp of beard, would have been recognized by Oliva Cresswell, for
+this was Professor Heyler--"the Herr Professor," as Beale called him.
+
+The man sitting opposite was cast in a different mould. He was tall,
+spare, almost æsthetic. The clean-shaven face, the well-moulded nose and
+chin hinted at a refinement which his shabby threadbare suit and his
+collarless shirt freakishly accentuated. Now and again he would raise
+his deep-set eyes from the book he was reading, survey the absorbed
+professor with a speculative glance and then return to his reading.
+
+They had sat in silence for the greater part of an hour, when Beale's
+tap on the door brought the reader round with narrow eyes.
+
+"Expecting a visitor, professor?" he asked in German.
+
+"Nein, nein," rambled the old man, "who shall visit me? Ah yes"--he
+tapped his fat forefinger--"I remember, the Fräulein was to call."
+
+He got up and, shuffling to the door, slipped back the bolt and turned
+it. His face fell when he saw Beale, and the man at the table rose.
+
+"Hope I am not disturbing you," said the detective. "I thought you
+lived alone."
+
+He, too, spoke in the language which the professor understood best.
+
+"That is a friend of mine," said old Heyler uncomfortably, "we live
+together. I did not think you knew my address."
+
+"Introduce me," said the man at the table coolly.
+
+The old professor looked dubiously from one to the other.
+
+"It is my friend, Herr Homo."
+
+"Herr Homo," repeated Beale, offering his hand, "my name is Beale."
+
+Homo shot a keen glance at him.
+
+"A split! or my criminal instincts fail me," he said, pleasantly enough.
+
+"Split?" repeated Beale, puzzled.
+
+"American I gather from your accent," said Mr. Homo; "pray sit down.
+'Split' is the phrase employed by the criminal classes to describe a
+gentleman who in your country is known as a 'fly cop'!"
+
+"Oh, a detective," smiled Beale. "No, in the sense you mean I am not a
+detective. At any rate, I have not come on business."
+
+"So I gather," said the other, seating himself, "or you would have
+brought one of the 'busy fellows' with you. Here again you must pardon
+the slang but we call the detective the 'busy fellow' to distinguish him
+from the 'flattie,' who is the regular cop. Unless you should be under
+any misapprehension, Mr. Beale, it is my duty to tell you that I am a
+representative of the criminal classes, a fact which our learned
+friend," he nodded toward the distressed professor, "never ceases to
+deplore," and he smiled blandly.
+
+They had dropped into English and the professor after waiting
+uncomfortably for the visitor to explain his business had dropped back
+to his work with a grunt.
+
+"I am Parson Homo and this is my _pied-à-terre_. We professional
+criminals must have somewhere to go when we are not in prison, you
+know."
+
+The voice was that of an educated man, its modulation, the confidence
+and the perfect poise of the speaker suggested the college man.
+
+"So that you shall not be shocked by revelations I must tell you that I
+have just come out of prison. I am by way of being a professional
+burglar."
+
+"I am not easily shocked," said Beale.
+
+He glanced at the professor.
+
+"I see," said Parson Homo, rising, "that I am _de trop_. Unfortunately I
+cannot go into the street without risking arrest. In this country, you
+know, there is a law which is called the Prevention of Crimes Act, which
+empowers the unemployed members of the constabulary who find time
+hanging on their hands to arrest known criminals on suspicion if they
+are seen out in questionable circumstances. And as all circumstances are
+questionable to the unimaginative 'flattie,' and his no less obtuse
+friend the 'split,' I will retire to the bedroom and stuff my ears with
+cotton-wool."
+
+"You needn't," smiled Beale, "I guess the professor hasn't many secrets
+from you."
+
+"Go on guessing, my ingenious friend," said the parson, smiling with his
+eyes, "my own secrets I am willing to reveal but--_adios!_"
+
+He waved his hand and passed behind the cretonne curtain and the old man
+looked up from his instrument.
+
+"It is the Donovan Leichmann body that I search for," he said solemnly;
+"there was a case of sleeping-sickness at the docks, and the Herr
+Professor of the Tropical School so kindly let me have a little blood
+for testing."
+
+"Professor," said Beale, sitting down in the place which Parson Homo had
+vacated and leaning across the table, "are you still working for van
+Heerden?"
+
+The old man rolled his big head from side to side in an agony of
+protest.
+
+"Of the learned doctor I do not want to speak," he said, "to me he has
+been most kind. Consider, Herr Peale, I was starving in this country
+which hates Germans and regard as a mad old fool and an ugly old devil,
+and none helped me until the learned doctor discovered me. I am a
+German, yes. Yet I have no nationality, being absorbed in the larger
+brotherhood of science. As for me I am indifferent whether the Kaiser or
+the Socialists live in Potsdam, but I am loyal, Herr Peale, to all who
+help me. To you, also," he said hastily, "for you have been most kind,
+and once when in foolishness I went into a room where I ought not to
+have been you saved me from the police." He shrugged his massive
+shoulders again. "I am grateful, but must I not also be grateful to the
+learned doctor?"
+
+"Tell me this, professor," said Beale, "where can I find the learned
+doctor to-night?"
+
+"At his so-well-known laboratory, where else?" asked the professor.
+
+"Where else?" repeated Beale.
+
+The old man was silent.
+
+"It is forbidden that I should speak," he said; "the Herr Doctor is
+engaged in a great experiment which will bring him fortune. If I betray
+his secrets he may be ruined. Such ingratitude, Herr Peale!"
+
+There was a silence, the old professor, obviously distressed and ill at
+ease, looking anxiously at the younger man.
+
+"Suppose I tell you that the Herr Doctor is engaged in a dangerous
+conspiracy," said Beale, "and that you yourself are running a
+considerable risk by assisting him?"
+
+The big hands were outspread in despair.
+
+"The Herr Doctor has many enemies," mumbled Heyler. "I can tell you
+nothing, Herr Peale."
+
+"Tell me this," said Beale: "is there any place you know of where the
+doctor may have taken a lady--the young lady into whose room you went
+the night I found you?"
+
+"A young lady?" The old man was obviously surprised. "No, no, Herr
+Peale, there is no place where a young lady could go. Ach! No!"
+
+"Well," said Beale, after a pause, "I guess I can do no more with you,
+professor." He glanced round at the cretonne recess: "I won't
+inconvenience you any longer, Mr. Homo."
+
+The curtains were pushed aside and the æsthetic-looking man stepped
+out, the half-smile on his thin lips.
+
+"I fear you have had a disappointing visit," he said pleasantly, "and it
+is on the tip of your tongue to ask me if I can help you. I will save
+you the trouble of asking--I can't."
+
+Beale laughed.
+
+"You are a bad thought-reader," he said. "I had no intention of asking
+you."
+
+He nodded to the old man, and with another nod to his companion was
+turning when a rap came at the door. He saw the two men exchange glances
+and noted in the face of the professor a look of blank dismay. The knock
+was repeated impatiently.
+
+"Permit me," said Beale, and stepped to the door.
+
+"Wait, wait," stammered the professor, "if Mr. Peale will permit----"
+
+He shuffled forward, but Beale had turned the latch and opened the door
+wide. Standing in the entrance was a girl whom he had no difficulty in
+recognizing as Hilda Glaum, sometime desk companion of Oliva Cresswell.
+His back was to the light and she did not recognize him.
+
+"Why did you not open more quickly?" she asked in German, and swung the
+heavy bag she carried into the room, "every moment I thought I should be
+intercepted. Here is the bag. It will be called for to-morrow----"
+
+It was then that she saw Beale for the first time and her face went
+white.
+
+"Who--who are you?" she asked; then quickly, "I know you. You are the
+man Beale. The drunken man----"
+
+She looked from him to the bag at her feet and to him again, then before
+he could divine her intention she had stooped and grasped the handle of
+the bag. Instantly all his attention was riveted upon that leather case
+and its secret. His hand shot out and gripped her arm, but she wrenched
+herself free. In doing so the bag was carried by the momentum of its
+release and was driven heavily against the wall. He heard a shivering
+crash as though a hundred little glasses had broken simultaneously.
+
+Before he could reach the bag she snatched it up, leapt through the
+open door and slammed it to behind her. His hand was on the latch----
+
+"Put 'em up, Mr. Beale, put 'em up," said a voice behind him. "Right
+above your head, Mr. Beale, where we can see them."
+
+He turned slowly, his hands rising mechanically to face Parson Homo, who
+still sat at the table, but he had discarded his Greek book and was
+handling a business-like revolver, the muzzle of which covered the
+detective.
+
+"Smells rotten, doesn't it?" said Homo pleasantly.
+
+Beale, too, had sniffed the musty odour, and knew that it came from the
+bag the girl had wrenched from his grasp. It was the sickly scent of the
+Green Rust!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AT DEANS FOLLY
+
+
+With her elbows resting on the broad window-ledge and her cheeks against
+the cold steel bars which covered the window, Oliva Cresswell watched
+the mists slowly dissipate in the gentle warmth of the morning sun. She
+had spent the night dozing in a rocking-chair and at the first light of
+day she had bathed and redressed ready for any emergency. She had not
+heard any sound during the night and she guessed that van Heerden had
+returned to London.
+
+The room in which she was imprisoned was on the first floor at the back
+of the house and the view she had of the grounds was restricted to a
+glimpse between two big lilac bushes which were planted almost on a
+level with her room.
+
+The house had been built on the slope of a gentle rise so that you might
+walk from the first-floor window on to the grassy lawn at the back of
+the house but for two important obstacles, the first being represented
+by the bars which protected the window and the second by a deep area,
+concrete-lined, which formed a trench too wide to jump.
+
+She could see, however, that the grounds were extensive. The high wall
+which, apparently, separated the garden from the road was a hundred
+yards away. She knew it must be the road because of a little brown gate
+which from time to time she saw between the swaying bushes. She turned
+wearily from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. She was not
+afraid--irritated would be a better word to describe her emotion. She
+was mystified, too, and that was an added irritation.
+
+Why should this man, van Heerden, who admittedly did not love her, who
+indeed loved her so little that he could strike her and show no signs of
+remorse--why did this man want to marry her? If he wanted to marry her,
+why did he kidnap her?
+
+There was another question, too, which she had debated that night. Why
+did his reference to the American detective, Beale, so greatly embarrass
+her?
+
+She had reached the point where even such tremendous subjects of debate
+had become less interesting than the answer to that question which was
+furnished, when a knock came to her door and a gruff voice said:
+
+"Breakfast!"
+
+She unlocked the door and pulled it open. The man called Gregory was
+standing on the landing. He jerked his thumb to the room opposite.
+
+"You can use both these rooms," he said, "but you can't come downstairs.
+I have put your breakfast in there."
+
+She followed the thumb across the landing and found herself in a plainly
+furnished sitting-room. The table had been laid with a respectable
+breakfast, and until she had appeased her healthy young appetite she
+took very little stock of her surroundings.
+
+The man came up in half an hour to clear away the table.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to tell me where I am?" asked Oliva.
+
+"I am not going to tell you anything," said Gregory.
+
+"I suppose you know that by detaining me here you are committing a very
+serious crime?"
+
+"Tell it to the doctor," said the man, with a queer little smile.
+
+She followed him out to the landing. She wanted to see what sort of
+guard was kept and what possibilities there were of escape. Somehow it
+seemed easier to make a reconnaissance now under his very eyes than it
+had been in the night, when in every shadow had lurked a menace.
+
+She did not follow him far, however. He put down the tray at the head of
+the stairs and reaching out both his hands drew two sliding doors from
+the wall and snapped them in her face. She heard the click of a door and
+knew that any chance of escape from this direction was hopeless. The
+doors had slid noiselessly on their oiled runners and had formed for her
+a little lobby of the landing. She guessed that the sliding doors had
+been closed after van Heerden's departure. She had exhausted all the
+possibilities of her bedroom and now began an inspection of the other.
+
+Like its fellow, the windows were barred. There was a bookshelf, crowded
+with old volumes, mostly on matters ecclesiastical or theological. She
+looked at it thoughtfully.
+
+"Now, if I were clever like Mr. Beale," she said aloud, "I could deduce
+quite a lot from this room."
+
+A distant church bell began to clang and she realized with a start that
+the day was Sunday. She looked at her watch and was amazed to see it was
+nearly eleven. She must have slept longer than she had thought.
+
+This window afforded her no better view than did that of the bedroom,
+except that she could see the gate more plainly and what looked to be
+the end of a low-roofed brick building which had been erected against
+the wall. She craned her neck, looking left and right, but the bushes
+had been carefully planted to give the previous occupants of these two
+rooms greater privacy.
+
+Presently the bell stopped and she addressed herself again to an
+examination of the room. In an old-fashioned sloping desk she found a
+few sheets of paper, a pen and a bottle half-filled with thick ink.
+There were also two telegraph forms, and these gave her an idea. She
+went back to the table in the middle of the room. With paper before her
+she began to note the contents of the apartment.
+
+"I am trying to be Bealish," she admitted.
+
+She might also have confessed that she was trying to keep her mind off
+her possibly perilous position and that though she was not afraid she
+had a fear of fear.
+
+"A case full of very dull good books. That means that the person who
+lived here before was very serious-minded."
+
+She walked over and examined the titles, pulled out a few books and
+looked at their title pages. They all bore the same name, "L. T. B.
+Stringer." She uttered an exclamation. Wasn't there some directory of
+clergymen's names?--she was sure this was a clergyman, nobody else would
+have a library of such weighty volumes.
+
+Her fingers ran along the shelves and presently she found what she
+wanted--Crocker's Clergy List of 1879. She opened the book and presently
+found, "Stringer, Laurence Thomas Benjamin, Vicar of Upper Staines,
+Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines."
+
+Her eyes sparkled. Instinctively she knew that she had located her
+prison. Van Heerden had certainly hired the house furnished, probably
+from the clergyman or his widow. She began to search the room with
+feverish haste. Near the window was a cupboard built out. She opened it
+and found that it was a small service lift, apparently communicating
+with the kitchen. In a corner of the room was an invalid chair on
+wheels.
+
+She sat down at the table and reconstructed the character of its
+occupant. She saw an invalid clergyman who had lived permanently in this
+part of the house. He was probably wheeled from his bedroom to his
+sitting-room, and in this cheerless chamber had spent the last years of
+his life. And this place was Deans Folly? She took up the telegraph form
+and after a few minutes' deliberation wrote:
+
+"To Beale, Krooman Mansions."
+
+She scratched that out, remembering that he had a telegraphic address
+and substituted:
+
+"Belocity, London." She thought a moment, then wrote: "Am imprisoned at
+Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines. Oliva." That looked too
+bold, and she added "Cresswell."
+
+She took a florin from her bag and wrapped it up in the telegraph form.
+She had no exact idea as to how she should get the message sent to the
+telegraph office, and it was Sunday, when all telegraph offices would be
+closed. Nor was there any immediate prospect of her finding a messenger.
+She supposed that tradesmen came to the house and that the kitchen door
+was somewhere under her window, but tradesmen do not call on Sundays.
+She held the little package irresolutely in her hand. She must take her
+chance to-day. To-morrow would be Monday and it was certain somebody
+would call.
+
+With this assurance she tucked the message into her blouse. She was in
+no mood to continue her inspection of the room, and it was only because
+in looking again from the window she pulled it from its hook that she
+saw the strange-looking instrument which hung between the window and the
+service lift. She picked it up, a dusty-looking thing. It consisted of a
+short vulcanite handle, from which extended two flat steel supports,
+terminating in vulcanite ear-plates. The handle was connected by a green
+cord with a plug in the wall.
+
+Oliva recognized it. It was an electrophone. One of those instruments by
+which stay-at-home people can listen to an opera, a theatrical
+entertainment or--a sermon. Of course it was a church. It was a very
+common practice for invalids to be connected up with their favourite
+pulpit, and doubtless the Rev. Mr. Stringer had derived considerable
+comfort from this invention.
+
+She dusted the receiver and put them to her ears. She heard nothing.
+Beneath the plug was a little switch. She turned this over and instantly
+her ears were filled with a strange hollow sound--the sound which a bad
+gramophone record makes.
+
+Then she realized that she was listening to a congregation singing.
+This ceased after awhile and she heard a cough, so surprisingly near and
+loud that she started. Of course, the transmitter would be in the
+pulpit, she thought. Then a voice spoke, clear and distinct, yet with
+that drawl which is the peculiar property of ministers of the
+Established Church. She smiled as the first words came to her.
+
+"I publish the banns of marriage between Henry Colebrook, and Jane Maria
+Smith both of this parish. This is the second time of asking." A pause,
+then: "Also between Henry Victor Vanden and Oliva Cresswell Prédeaux,
+both of this parish. This is the third time of asking. If any of you
+know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined
+together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it."
+
+She dropped the instrument with a crash and stood staring down at it.
+She had been listening to the publication of her own wedding-notice.
+
+"Vanden" was van Heerden. "Oliva Cresswell Prédeaux" was herself. The
+strangeness of the names meant nothing. She guessed rather than knew
+that the false name would not be any insuperable bar to the ceremony.
+She must get away. For the first time she had a horrible sense of being
+trapped, and for a few seconds she must have lost her head, for she
+tugged at the iron bars, dashed wildly out and hammered at the sliding
+door. Presently her reason took charge. She heard the heavy step of
+Gregory on the stairs and recovered her calm by the time he had unlocked
+the bar and pulled the doors apart.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked.
+
+"I want you to let me out of here."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" he said sarcastically, and for the second time that
+day slammed the door in her face.
+
+She waited until he was out of hearing, then she went back noiselessly
+to the sitting-room. She pushed open the door of the service lift and
+tested the ropes. There were two, one which supported the lift and one
+by which it was hauled up, and she gathered that these with the lift
+itself formed an endless chain.
+
+Gripping both ropes firmly she crept into the confined space of the
+cupboard and let herself down hand over hand. She had about twelve feet
+to descend before she reached the kitchen entrance of the elevator. She
+squeezed through the narrow opening and found herself in a stone-flagged
+kitchen. It was empty. A small fire glowed in the grate. Her own tray
+with all the crockery unwashed was on the dresser, and there were the
+remnants of a meal at one end of the plain table. She tiptoed across the
+kitchen to the door. It was bolted top and bottom and locked.
+Fortunately the key was in the lock, and in two minutes she was outside
+in a small courtyard beneath the level of the ground.
+
+One end of the courtyard led past another window, and that she could not
+risk. To her right was a flight of stone steps, and that was obviously
+the safer way. She found herself in a little park which fortunately for
+her was plentifully sprinkled with clumps of rhododendrons, and she
+crept from bush to bush, taking care to keep out of sight of the house.
+She had the telegram and the money in her hand, and her first object was
+to get this outside. It took her twenty minutes to reach the wall. It
+was too high to scale and there was no sign of a ladder. The only way
+out was the little brown door she had seen from her bedroom window, and
+cautiously she made her way back, flitting from bush to bush until she
+came to the place where a clear view of the door and the building to its
+left could be obtained.
+
+The low-roofed shed she had seen was much longer than she had expected
+and evidently had recently been built. Its black face was punctured at
+intervals with square windows, and a roughly painted door to the left of
+the brown garden gate was the only entrance she could see. She looked
+for a key but without hope of finding one. She must take her chance, she
+thought, and a quick run brought her from the cover of the bushes to the
+brown portal which stood between her and liberty.
+
+With trembling hands she slid back the bolts and turned the handle. Her
+heart leapt as it gave a little. Evidently it had not been used for
+years and she found it was only held fast by the gravel which had
+accumulated beneath it.
+
+Eagerly she scraped the gravel aside with her foot and her hand was on
+the knob when she heard a muffled voice behind her. She turned and then
+with a gasp of horror fell back. Standing in the doorway of the shed was
+a thing which was neither man nor beast. It was covered in a wrap which
+had once been white but was now dappled with green. The face and head
+were covered with rubber, two green staring eyes surveyed her, and a
+great snout-like nose was uplifted as in amazement. She was paralysed
+for a moment. For the beastliness of the figure was appalling.
+
+Then realizing that it was merely a man whose face was hidden by a
+hideous mask, she sprang again for the door, but a hand gripped her arm
+and pulled her back. She heard a cheerful whistle from the road without
+and remembering the package in her hand she flung it high over the wall
+and heard its soft thud, and the whistle stop.
+
+Then as the hideous figure slipped his arm about her and pressed a musty
+hand over her mouth she fainted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. BEALE SUGGESTS MARRIAGE
+
+
+"Held up by a gunman?" asked James Kitson incredulously, "why, what do
+you mean?"
+
+"It doesn't sound right, does it?" smiled Beale, "especially after
+McNorton telling us the other day that there was no such thing as a
+gunman in England. Do you remember his long dissertation on the
+law-abiding criminals of this little old country?" he laughed.
+
+"But a gunman," protested Mr. Kitson--"by the way, have you had
+breakfast?"
+
+"Hours ago," replied Beale, "but don't let me interrupt you."
+
+Mr. James Kitson pulled his chair to the table and unfolded his napkin.
+It was almost at this hour that Oliva Cresswell had performed a similar
+act.
+
+"You are not interrupting me," said Kitson, "go on."
+
+Beale was frowning down at deserted Piccadilly which Mr. Kitson's
+palatial suite at the Ritz-Carlton overlooked.
+
+"Eh?" he said absently, "oh yes, the gunman--a sure enough gunman."
+
+He related in a few words his experience of the previous night.
+
+"This man Homo," said Kitson, "is he one of the gang?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"I don't think so. He may be one of van Heerden's ambassadors."
+
+"Ambassadors?"
+
+"I will explain van Heerden's game one of these days and you will
+understand what I mean," said Beale. "No, I don't think that Parson Homo
+is being any more than a gentle knight succouring a distressed lady,
+whether for love of the lady, out of respect for the professor or from a
+general sense of antagonism to all detectives, I can only speculate.
+Anyway, he held me until the lady was out of hearing and presumably out
+of sight. And then there was no need for me to go. I just sat down and
+talked, and a more amiable and cultured gentleman it would be impossible
+to meet."
+
+Kitson looked at his companion through narrowed lids.
+
+"Why, that's not like you, Beale," he said. "I thought you were too hot
+on the scent to waste time."
+
+"So I am," said the other, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets,
+"that's just what I am." He turned suddenly to the older man. "Mr.
+Kitson, I've got to know a little more about John Millinborn's will than
+I know at present."
+
+The lawyer looked up, fixed his glasses and regarded the younger man
+with a troubled look.
+
+"I'm sorry to jump in on you like this, but I'm rattled. I don't
+understand much about the English law though I know that marriages
+aren't as easy to make here in London as they are in our country. But
+here as everywhere else it is fairly difficult to force a girl into
+marriage against her will, and the marriage of course is not good in
+law."
+
+He sat down on the arm of a couch, dangling his hat between his legs,
+and ran his fingers through his hair with a nervous little laugh.
+
+"Here I'm telling you all that I came to ask you."
+
+"Have a cup of tea," said Kitson, with a smile, "everybody in England
+rushes to tea and I hope I shall get you in the habit."
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"You are right about the marriage," Kitson went on, "but I'll give you
+the law on the subject. A marriage can only be solemnized if due notice
+is given by the parties who must be resident in the district where it is
+to take place--three weeks is the period of notice."
+
+"Is there no other way?"
+
+"Yes. By paying special fees and offering a good and sufficient reason a
+faculty can be secured from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or rather from
+his officials, authorizing a marriage without notice. It is called a
+special licence, and the marriage may occur at any hour and at any
+place."
+
+"Is there a register of applications?" asked Beale quickly.
+
+"I've thought of that," nodded the lawyer, "yes, I'm keeping that side
+under observation. It is difficult because officialdom isn't as obliging
+as it might be. My own view is that van Heerden will be married in the
+ordinary way, that is to say by giving notice. To secure his special
+licence he would be obliged to give his own name and be vouched for; he
+can be married in the ordinary way even if he gives a false name, which
+in all probability he will."
+
+"Would the marriage be legal if it was in a false name?"
+
+"Absolutely. In English law you may commit an offence by marrying in a
+wrong name, but it would not invalidate the marriage."
+
+Stanford Beale sat studying the pattern of the carpet.
+
+"Is there any chance of two special licences being issued to marry the
+same girl?" he asked.
+
+"None--why do you ask?"
+
+Beale did not reply immediately.
+
+"Something Homo said last night when I told him frankly that I was
+searching for Miss Cresswell. 'Oh,' said he, 'that's the lady that's
+marrying the doctor.' He wouldn't tell me more. But he gave me an idea
+to make sure that no special licence is issued to van Heerden. I shall
+apply for one myself."
+
+The lawyer stared at him.
+
+"To marry the girl?" he gasped. "But----"
+
+Stanford Beale laughed a little bitterly.
+
+"Say, don't get up in the air, Mr. Kitson--I'm only thinking of Miss
+Cresswell. A special licence in my name would stop one of van Heerden's
+paths to easy money. Tell me, and this is what I came to ask you, under
+Millinborn's will, does the husband benefit directly by the marriage, or
+is he dependent upon what his wife gives him?'
+
+"He benefits directly," said Kitson after a pause, "on his marriage he
+receives exactly one-half of the girl's fortune. That was Millinborn's
+idea. 'Make the husband independent,' he said, 'do not put him in the
+humiliating position of dependence on his wife's generosity, and there
+will be a chance of happiness for them both.'"
+
+"I see--of course, van Heerden knows that. He has only to produce a
+marriage certificate to scoop in two and a half million dollars--that is
+half a million in English money. This is the secret of it all. He wants
+money immediately, and under the terms of the will----?"
+
+"He gets it," said Kitson. "If he came to me to-morrow with proof of his
+marriage, even if I knew that he had coerced the girl into marriage, I
+must give him his share--van Heerden was pretty thorough when he put my
+dying friend through his examination." His face hardened. "Heavens, I'd
+give every penny I had in the world to bring that fiend to the gallows,
+Beale!"
+
+His voice shook, and rising abruptly he walked to the window. Presently
+he turned. "I think there is something in your idea. Get the licence."
+
+"I will--and marry her," said Beale quickly.
+
+"Marry her--I don't quite understand you?"
+
+For the first time there was suspicion in his voice.
+
+"Mr. Kitson, I'm going to put all my cards on the table," said Beale
+quietly, "will you sit down a moment? There are certain facts which we
+cannot ignore. Fact one is that Oliva Cresswell is in the hands of a man
+who is absolutely unscrupulous, but has no other object in view than
+marriage. Her beauty, her charm, all the attractive qualities which
+appeal to most men and to all brutes have no appeal for him--to him she
+is just a money proposition. If he can't marry her, she has no further
+interest for him."
+
+"I see that," agreed the lawyer, "but----"
+
+"Wait, please. If we knew where she was we could stop the marriage and
+indict van Heerden--but I've an idea that we shan't locate her until it
+is too late or nearly too late. I can't go hunting with a pack of
+policemen. I must play a lone hand, or nearly a lone hand. When I find
+her I must be in a position to marry her without losing a moment."
+
+"You mean to marry her to foil van Heerden, and after--to dissolve the
+marriage?" asked the lawyer, shaking his head. "I don't like that
+solution, Beale--I tell you frankly, I don't like it. You're a good man
+and I have every faith in you, but if I consented, even though I were
+confident that you would play fair, which I am, I should feel that I had
+betrayed John Millinborn's trust. It isn't because it is you, my son,"
+he said kindly enough, "but if you were the Archangel Gabriel I'd kick
+at that plan. Marriage is a difficult business to get out of once you
+are in it, especially in this country."
+
+Beale did not interrupt the older man.
+
+"Right, and now if you've finished I'll tell you my scheme," he said,
+"as I see it there's only a ghost of a chance of our saving this girl
+from marriage. I've done my best and we--McNorton and I--have taken all
+the facts before a judge this morning. We got a special interview with
+the idea of securing a warrant for van Heerden's arrest. But there is no
+evidence to convict him on any single charge. We cannot connect him with
+the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, and although I pointed out that van
+Heerden admits that he knows where the girl is, the judge said, fairly I
+thought, that there was no law which compelled a man to divulge the
+address of his fiancée to one who was a possible rival. The girl is of
+an age when she can do as she wishes, and as I understand the matter you
+have no legal status as a guardian."
+
+"None," said James Kitson, "that is our weak point. I am merely the
+custodian of her money. Officially I am supposed to be ignorant of the
+fact that Oliva Cresswell is Oliva Prédeaux, the heiress."
+
+"Therefore our hands are tied," concluded Beale quietly. "Don't you see
+that my plan is the only one--but I haven't told you what it is. There's
+a man, a criminal, this Parson Homo who can help; I am satisfied that he
+does not know where the girl is--but he'll help for a consideration. As
+a matter of fact, he was pulled again. I am seeing him this afternoon."
+
+Mr. Kitson frowned.
+
+"The gunman--how can he help you?"
+
+"I will tell you. This man, as I say, is known to the police as Parson
+Homo. Apparently he is an unfrocked priest, one who has gone under. He
+still preserves the resemblance to a gentleman"--he spoke slowly and
+deliberately; "in decent clothes he would look like a parson. I propose
+that he shall marry me to Miss Cresswell. The marriage will be a fake,
+but neither the girl nor van Heerden will know this. If my surmise is
+right, when van Heerden finds she is married he will take no further
+steps--except, perhaps," he smiled, "to make her a widow. Sooner or
+later we are bound to get him under lock and key, and then we can tell
+Miss Cresswell the truth."
+
+"In other words, you intend breaking the law and committing a serious
+offence," said Kitson, shaking his head. "I can't be a party to
+that--besides, she may not marry you."
+
+"I see that danger--van Heerden is a mighty clever fellow. He may be
+married before I trace them."
+
+"You say that Homo doesn't know about the girl, what does he know?"
+
+"He has heard of van Heerden. He has heard probably from the girl Hilda
+Glaum that van Heerden is getting married--the underworld do not get
+their news out of special editions--he probably knows too that van
+Heerden is engaged in some swindle which is outside the parson's line of
+business."
+
+"Will he help you?"
+
+"Sure," Beale said with quiet confidence, "the man is broke and
+desperate. The police watch him like a cat, and would get him sooner or
+later. McNorton told me that much. I have offered him passage to
+Australia and £500, and he is ready to jump at it."
+
+"You have explained the scheme?"
+
+"I had to," confessed Beale, "there was no time to be lost. To my
+surprise he didn't like it. It appears that even a double-dyed crook has
+scruples, and even when I told him the whole of my plan he still didn't
+like it, but eventually agreed. He has gone to Whitechapel to get the
+necessary kit. I am putting him up in my flat. Of course, it may not be
+necessary," he went on, "but somehow I think it will be."
+
+Kitson spread out his hands in despair.
+
+"I shall have to consent," he said, "the whole thing was a mistake from
+the beginning. I trust you, Stanford," he went on, looking the other in
+the eye, "you have no feeling beyond an ordinary professional interest
+in this young lady?"
+
+Beale dropped his eyes.
+
+"If I said that, Mr. Kitson, I should be telling a lie," he said
+quietly. "I have a very deep interest in Miss Cresswell, but that is not
+going to make any difference to me and she will never know."
+
+He left soon after this and went back to his rooms. At four o'clock he
+received a visitor. Parson Homo, cleanly shaved and attired in a
+well-fitting black coat and white choker, seemed more real to the
+detective than the Parson Homo he had met on the previous night.
+
+"You look the part all right," said Beale.
+
+"I suppose I do," said the other shortly; "what am I to do next?"
+
+"You stay here. I have made up a bed for you in my study," said Beale.
+
+"I would like to know a little more of this before I go any further,"
+Homo said, "there are many reasons why I want information."
+
+"I have told you the story," said Beale patiently, "and I am going to
+say right here that I do not intend telling you any more. You carry this
+thing through and I'll pay you what I agreed. Nobody will be injured by
+your deception, that I promise you."
+
+"That doesn't worry me so much," said the other coolly, "as----"
+
+There came a knock at the door, an agitated hurried knock, and Beale
+immediately answered it. It was McNorton, and from force of habit Parson
+Homo drew back into the shadows.
+
+"All right, Parson," said McNorton, "I knew you were here. What do you
+make of this?"
+
+He turned to Beale and laid on the table a piece of paper which had been
+badly crumpled and which he now smoothed out. It was the top half of a
+telegraph form, the lower half had been torn away.
+
+"'To Belocity, London,'" Beale read aloud.
+
+"That's you," interrupted McNorton, and the other nodded.
+
+"'To Belocity, London,'" he read slowly. "'Am imprisoned at Deans----'"
+
+At this point the remainder of the message had been torn off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GOOD HERR STARDT
+
+
+"Where is the rest?" said Beale.
+
+"That's the lot," replied McNorton grimly. "It's the only information
+you will get from this source for twenty-four hours."
+
+"But I don't understand, it is undoubtedly Miss Cresswell's
+handwriting."
+
+"And 'Belocity' is as undoubtedly your telegraphic address. This paper,"
+he went on, "was taken from a drunken tramp--'hobo' you call 'em, don't
+you?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At Kingston-on-Thames," said McNorton--"the man was picked up in the
+street, fighting drunk, and taken to the police station, where he
+developed delirium tremens. Apparently he has been on the jag all the
+week, and to-day's booze finished him off. The local inspector in
+searching him found this piece of paper in his pocket and connected it
+with the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, the matter being fresh in his
+mind, as only this morning we had circulated a new description
+throughout the home counties. He got me on the 'phone and sent a
+constable up to town with the paper this afternoon."
+
+"H'm," said Beale, biting his lips thoughtfully, "she evidently gave the
+man the telegram, telling him to dispatch it. She probably gave him
+money, too, which was the explanation of his final drunk."
+
+"I don't think that is the case," said McNorton, "he had one lucid
+moment at the station when he was cross-examined as to where he got the
+money to get drunk, and he affirmed that he found it wrapped up in a
+piece of paper. That sounds true to me. She either dropped it from a car
+or threw it from a house."
+
+"Is the man very ill?"
+
+"Pretty bad," said the other, "you will get nothing out of him before
+the morning. The doctors had to dope him to get him quiet, and he will
+be some time before he is right."
+
+He looked up at the other occupant of the room.
+
+"Well, Parson, you are helping Mr. Beale, I understand?"
+
+"Yes," said the other easily.
+
+"Returning to your old profession, I see," said McNorton.
+
+Parson Homo drew himself up a little stiffly.
+
+"If you have anything against me you can pull me for it," he said
+insolently: "that's your business. As to the profession I followed
+before I started on that career of crime which brought me into contact
+with the crude representatives of what is amusingly called 'the law,' is
+entirely my affair."
+
+"Don't get your wool off, Parson," said the other good-humouredly. "You
+have lost your sense of humour."
+
+"That's where you are wrong," said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my
+sense of decency."
+
+McNorton turned to the other.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he asked.
+
+"'I am imprisoned at Deans,'" repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in
+this country?"
+
+"There are a dozen of them," replied the police chief: "there's
+Deansgate in Manchester, Deanston in Perth, Deansboro', Deans
+Abbey--I've been looking them up, there is a whole crowd of them."
+
+"Are there any 'Deans' near Kingston?"
+
+"None," replied the other.
+
+"Then it is obviously the name of a house," said Beale. "I have noticed
+that in England you are in the habit of naming rather than numbering
+your houses, especially in the suburbs." He looked across to Parson
+Homo, "Can you help?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"If I were a vulgar burglar I might assist you," he said, "but my branch
+of the profession does not take me to the suburbs."
+
+"We will get a Kingston Directory and go through it," said McNorton; "we
+have one on the file at Scotland Yard. If----"
+
+Beale suddenly raised his hand to enjoin silence: he had heard a
+familiar step in the corridor outside.
+
+"That's van Heerden," he said in a low voice, "he has been out all the
+morning."
+
+"Has he been shadowed?" asked McNorton in the same tone.
+
+"My man lost him," he said.
+
+He tiptoed along the passage and stood listening behind the door.
+Presently he heard the doctor's door close and came back.
+
+"I have had the best sleuth in America trailing him," he said, "and he
+has slipped him every time."
+
+"Anyway," said McNorton, "this telegram disposes of the idea that she
+has gone to Liverpool. It also settles the question as to whether she
+went of her own free will. If his name were on that telegram," he said
+thoughtfully, "I would take a risk and pull him in."
+
+"I will give you something bigger to pull him for," Beale said, "once I
+have placed Miss Cresswell in safety."
+
+"The Green Rust?" smiled the police chief.
+
+"The Green Rust," said Beale, but he did not smile, "that's van
+Heerden's big game. The abduction of Miss Cresswell is merely a means to
+an end. He wants her money and may want it very badly. The more urgent
+is his need the sooner that marriage takes place."
+
+"But there is no clergyman in England who would marry them"--it was Homo
+who interrupted. "My dear friend, that sort of thing is not done except
+in story books. If the woman refuses her consent the marriage cannot
+possibly occur. As I understand, the lady is not likely to be cowed."
+
+"That is what I am afraid of," said Beale, "she is all pluck----"
+
+He stopped, for he had heard the doctor's door close. In three strides
+he had crossed the hallway and was in the corridor, confronting his
+suave neighbour. Dr. van Heerden, carefully attired, was pulling on his
+gloves and smiled into the stern face of his rival.
+
+"Well," he asked pleasantly, "any news of Miss Cresswell?"
+
+"If I had any news of Miss Cresswell you would not be here," said Beale.
+
+"But how interesting," drawled the doctor. "Where should I be?"
+
+"You would be under lock and key, my friend," said Beale.
+
+The doctor threw back his head and laughed softly.
+
+"What a lover!" he said, "and how reluctant to accept his dismissal! It
+may ease your mind to know that Miss Cresswell, whom I hope very soon to
+call Mrs. van Heerden, is perfectly happy, and is very annoyed at your
+persistence. I had a telegram from her this morning, begging me to come
+to Liverpool at the earliest opportunity."
+
+"That's a lie," said Beale quietly, "but one lie more or less, I
+suppose, doesn't count."
+
+"A thoroughly immoral view to take," said the doctor with much severity,
+"but I see there is nothing to be gained by arguing with you, and I can
+only make one request."
+
+Beale said nothing but stood waiting.
+
+"It is this," said the doctor, choosing his words with great care: "that
+you call off the gentleman who has been dogging my footsteps to-day. It
+was amusing at first but now it is becoming annoying. Some of my
+patients have complained of this man watching their houses."
+
+"You've not seen a patient to-day, van Heerden," said Beale, "and,
+anyway, I guess you had better get used to being shadowed. It isn't your
+first experience."
+
+The doctor looked at him under lowered lids and smiled again.
+
+"I could save your man a great deal of trouble," he said, "and myself
+considerable exertion by giving him a list of the places where I intend
+calling."
+
+"He will find that out for himself," said Beale.
+
+"I wish him greater success than he has had," replied the other, and
+passed on, descending the stairs slowly.
+
+Beale went back to his flat, passed to his bedroom and looked down into
+the street. He made a signal to a man at the corner and received an
+almost imperceptible answer. Then he returned to the two men.
+
+"This fellow is too clever for us, I am afraid, and London with its
+tubes, its underground stations and taxi-cabs is a pretty difficult
+proposition."
+
+"I suppose your man lost him in the tube," said McNorton.
+
+"There are two ways down, the elevator and the stairs, and it is mighty
+difficult to follow a man unless you know which way he is going."
+
+"But you were interrupted at an interesting moment. What are you going
+to tell us about the Green Rust?"
+
+"I can only tell you this," said Beale, "that the Green Rust is the
+greatest conspiracy against the civilized world that has ever been
+hatched."
+
+He looked sharply at Homo.
+
+"Don't look at me," said the Parson, "I know nothing about it,
+unless----" He stopped and frowned. "The Green Rust," he repeated, "is
+that old man Heyler's secret?"
+
+"He's in it," said Beale shortly.
+
+"Is it a swindle of some kind?" asked the Parson curiously. "It never
+struck me that Heyler was that kind of man."
+
+"There is no swindle in it so far as Heyler's concerned," said Beale,
+"it is something bigger than a swindle."
+
+A telephone bell rang and he took up the receiver and listened, only
+interjecting a query or two. Then he hung up the instrument.
+
+"It is as I thought," he said: "the doctor's slipped again. Had a car
+waiting for him in Oxford Street and when he saw there were no taxi-cabs
+about, jumped in and was driven eastward."
+
+"Did you get the number of the car?" asked McNorton.
+
+Beale smiled.
+
+"That's not much use," he said, "he's probably got two or three
+number-plates."
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"I'll go along to Kingston," he said.
+
+"I shan't be able to come with you," said McNorton, "I have a meeting
+with the commissioner at five."
+
+"Before you go," remarked Beale, "you might put your signature to this
+declaration of my _bona fides_."
+
+He laid on the table a blue foolscap blank.
+
+"What's this?" asked the surprised McNorton, "an application for a
+special licence--are you going to be married?"
+
+"I hope so," said the other cautiously.
+
+"You don't seem very cheerful about it. I presume you want me to testify
+to the urgency of the case. I am probably perjuring myself." He signed
+his name with a flourish. "When are you getting the licence and what's
+the hurry?"
+
+"I am getting the licence to-morrow," said Beale.
+
+"And the lady's name is----?"
+
+"I thought you had noticed it," smiled the other, deftly blotting and
+folding the form.
+
+"Not Miss Cresswell?" demanded the police chief in surprise.
+
+"Miss Cresswell it is."
+
+"But I thought----"
+
+"There are circumstances which may be brought to your official notice,
+McNorton," said the detective, "for the present it is necessary to keep
+my plan a secret."
+
+"Has it anything to do with the Green Rust?" asked the other jokingly.
+
+"A great deal to do with the Green Rust."
+
+"Well, I'll get along," said McNorton. "I will telephone the Kingston
+police to give you all the assistance possible, but I am afraid you will
+learn nothing from the tramp till the morning, and perhaps not then."
+
+He took his leave soon after.
+
+"Now, Homo, it is up to you and me," said Beale. "You will have to keep
+close to me after to-morrow. Make yourself at home here until I come
+back."
+
+"One moment," said Homo, as Beale rose and gathered up his hat and
+gloves to depart. "Before you go I want you to understand clearly that I
+am taking on this job because it offers me a chance that I haven't had
+since I fell from grace, if you will excuse the _cliché_."
+
+"That I understand," said Beale.
+
+"I may be doing you a very bad turn."
+
+"I'll take that risk," said Beale.
+
+"On your own head be it," said Homo, his hard face creased in a
+fleeting smile.
+
+Beale's car was waiting, but his departure was unexpectedly delayed. As
+he passed down the stairs into the vestibule he saw a stranger standing
+near the door reading the enamelled name-plates affixed to the wall.
+Something in his appearance arrested Beale. The man was well dressed in
+the sense that his clothes were new and well cut, but the pattern of the
+cloth, no less than the startling yellowness of the boots and that
+unmistakable sign-manual of the foreigner, the shape and colour of the
+cravat, stamped him as being neither American nor British.
+
+"Can I be of any assistance?" asked Beale. "Are you looking for
+somebody?"
+
+The visitor turned a pink face to him.
+
+"You are very good," he said with the faint trace of an accent. "I
+understand that Doctor van Heerden lives here?"
+
+"Yes, he lives here," said Beale, "but I am afraid he is not at home."
+
+He thought it might be a patient or a summons to a patient.
+
+"Not at home?" The man's face fell. "But how unfortunate! Could you tell
+me where I can find him, my business is immediate and I have come a long
+way."
+
+From Germany, guessed Beale. The mail train was due at Charing Cross
+half an hour before.
+
+"I am a friend of Doctor van Heerden and possibly I can assist you. Is
+the business very important? Does it concern," he hesitated, "the Green
+Rust?"
+
+He spoke the last sentence in German and the man started and looked at
+him with mingled suspicion and uncertainty.
+
+"It is a matter of the greatest importance," he repeated, "it is of
+vital importance."
+
+He spoke in German.
+
+"About the Green Rust?" asked Beale, in the same language.
+
+"I do not know anything of the Green Rust," said the man hurriedly. "I
+am merely the bearer of a communication which is of the greatest
+importance." He repeated the words--"the greatest importance."
+
+"If you give me the letter," said Beale, "I will see that it is sent on
+to him," and he held out his hand with the assurance of one who shared
+the dearest secrets of the doctor. The stranger's hand wandered to his
+breast pocket, but came back empty.
+
+"No, it must be given--I must see the doctor himself," he said. "He does
+not expect me and I will wait."
+
+Beale thought quickly.
+
+"Well, perhaps you will come upstairs to my flat and wait," he said
+genially, and led the way, and the man, still showing evidence of
+uneasiness, was ushered into his room, where the sight of the Rev.
+Parson Homo tended to reassure him.
+
+Would he have tea? He would not have tea. Would he take coffee? He would
+not take coffee. A glass of wine perhaps? No, he did not drink wine nor
+beer, nor would he take any refreshment whatever.
+
+"My man," thought the desperate Beale, "I either chloroform you or hit
+you on the head with the poker, but I am going to see that letter."
+
+As if divining his thought, but placing thereon a wrong construction,
+the man said:
+
+"I should avail myself of your kindness to deliver my letter to Doctor
+van Heerden, but of what service would it be since it is only a letter
+introducing me to the good doctor?"
+
+"Oh, is that all?" said Beale, disappointed, and somehow he knew the man
+spoke the truth.
+
+"That is all," he said, "except of course my message, which is verbal.
+My name is Stardt, you may have heard the doctor speak of me. We have
+had some correspondence."
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember," lied Beale.
+
+"The message is for him alone, of course, as you will understand, and if
+I deliver it to you," smiled Herr Stardt, "you should not understand it,
+because it is one word."
+
+"One word?" said Beale blankly. "A code--hang!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PAWN TICKET
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell awoke to consciousness as she was being carried up the
+stairs of the house. She may have recovered sooner, for she retained a
+confused impression of being laid down amidst waving grasses and of
+hearing somebody grunt that she was heavier than he thought.
+
+Also she remembered as dimly the presence of Dr. van Heerden standing
+over her, and he was wearing a long grey dust-coat.
+
+As her captor kicked open the door of her room she scrambled out of his
+arms and leant against the bed-rail for support.
+
+"I'm all right," she said breathlessly, "it was foolish to faint,
+but--but you frightened me."
+
+The man grinned, and seemed about to speak, but a sharp voice from the
+landing called him, and he went out, slamming the door behind him. She
+crossed to the bath-room, bathed her face in cold water and felt better,
+though she was still a little giddy.
+
+Then she sat down to review the situation, and in that review two
+figures came alternately into prominence--van Heerden and Beale.
+
+She was an eminently sane girl. She had had the beginnings of what might
+have been an unusually fine education, had it not been interrupted by
+the death of her foster-mother. She had, too, the advantage which the
+finished young lady does not possess, of having grafted to the wisdom of
+the schools the sure understanding of men and things which personal
+contact with struggling humanity can alone give to us.
+
+The great problems of life had been sprung upon her with all their
+hideous realism, and through all she had retained her poise and her
+clear vision. Many of the phenomena represented by man's attitude to
+woman she could understand, but that a man who admittedly did not love
+her and had no other apparent desire than to rid himself of the incubus
+of a wife as soon as he was wed, should wish to marry her was
+incomprehensible. That he had already published the banns of her
+marriage left her gasping at his audacity. Strange how her thoughts
+leapt all the events of the morning: the wild rush to escape, the
+struggle with the hideously masked man, and all that went before or
+followed, and went back to the night before.
+
+Somehow she knew that van Heerden had told her the truth, and that there
+was behind this act of his a deeper significance than she could grasp.
+She remembered what he had said about Beale, and flushed.
+
+"You're silly, Matilda," she said to herself, employing the term of
+address which she reserved for moments of self-depreciation, "here is a
+young man you have only met half a dozen times, who is probably a very
+nice married policeman with a growing family and you are going hot and
+cold at the suggestion that you're in love with him." She shook her head
+reproachfully.
+
+And yet upon Beale all her thoughts were centred, and however they might
+wander it was to Beale they returned. She could analyse that buoyancy
+which had asserted itself, that confidence which had suddenly become a
+mental armour, which repelled every terrifying thought, to this faith
+she had in a man, who in a few weeks before she had looked upon as an
+incorrigible drunkard.
+
+She had time for thought, and really, though this she did not
+acknowledge, she desperately needed the occupation of that thought. What
+was Beale's business? Why did he employ her to copy out this list of
+American and Canadian statistics? Why did he want to know all these
+hotels, their proprietors, the chief of the police and the like? She
+wished she had her papers and books so that she might go on extracting
+that interminable list.
+
+What would van Heerden do now? Would her attempted escape change his
+plans? How would he overcome the difficulty of marrying a girl who was
+certain to denounce him in the presence of so independent a witness as a
+clergyman? She would die before she married him, she told herself.
+
+She could not rest, and walked about the room examining the framed
+prints and looking at the books, and occasionally walking to the glass
+above the dressing-chest to see if any sign was left of the red mark on
+her cheek where van Heerden's hand had fallen. This exercise gave her a
+curious satisfaction, and when she saw that the mark had subsided and
+was blending more to the colour of her skin she felt disappointed.
+Startled, she analysed this curious mental attitude and again came to
+Beale. She wanted Beale to see the place. She wanted Beale's sympathy.
+She wanted Beale's rage--she was sure he would rage.
+
+She laughed to herself and for want of other and better amusement walked
+to the drawers in the dressing-bureau and examined their contents. They
+were empty and unlocked save one, which refused to respond to her tug.
+She remembered she had a small bunch of keys in her bag.
+
+"I am going to be impertinent. Forgive the liberty," she said, as she
+felt the lock give to the first attempt.
+
+She pulled the drawer open. It contained a few articles of feminine
+attire and a thick black leather portfolio. She lifted this out, laid it
+on the table and opened it. It was filled with foolscap. Written on the
+cover was the word "Argentine" and somehow the writing was familiar to
+her. It was a bold hand, obviously feminine.
+
+"Where have I seen that before?" she asked, and knit her forehead.
+
+She turned the first leaf and read:
+
+"Alsigar Hotel, Fournos, Proprietor, Miguel Porcorini. Index 2."
+
+Her mouth opened in astonishment and she ran down the list. She took out
+another folder. It was marked "Canada," and she turned the leaves
+rapidly. She recognized this work. It was the same work that Beale had
+given to her, a list of the hotels, their proprietors and means of
+conveyance, but there was no reference to the police. And then it dawned
+upon her. An unusually long description produced certain characteristics
+of writing which she recognized.
+
+"Hilda Glaum!" she said. "I wonder what this means!"
+
+She examined the contents of the drawer again and some of them puzzled
+her. Not the little stack of handkerchiefs, the folded collars and the
+like. If Hilda Glaum was in the habit of visiting Deans Folly and used
+this room it was natural that these things should be here. If this were
+her bureau the little carton of nibs and the spare note book were to be
+expected. It was the steel box which set her wondering. This she
+discovered in the far corner of the drawer. If she could have imagined
+anything so fantastic she might have believed that the box had been
+specially made to hold the thing it contained and preserve it from the
+dangers of fire. The lid, which closed with a spring catch, released by
+the pressure of a tiny button, was perfectly fitted so that the box was
+in all probability air-tight.
+
+She opened it without difficulty. The sides were lined with what seemed
+to be at first sight thick cardboard but which proved on closer
+inspection to be asbestos. She opened it with a sense of eager
+anticipation, but her face fell. Save for a tiny square blue envelope at
+the bottom, the box was empty!
+
+She lifted it in her hand to shake out the envelope and it was then that
+the idea occurred to her that the box had been made for the envelope,
+which refused to budge until she lifted one end with a hairpin.
+
+It was unsealed, and she slipped in her finger and pulled out--a pawn
+ticket!
+
+She had an inclination to laugh which she checked. She examined the
+ticket curiously. It announced the fact that Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros.,
+of Commercial Road, London, had advanced ten shillings on a "Gents'
+Silver Hunter Watch," and the pledge had been made in the name of van
+Heerden!
+
+She gazed at it bewildered. He was not a man who needed ten shillings or
+ten dollars or ten pounds. Why should he pledge a watch and why having
+pledged it should he keep the ticket with such care?
+
+Oliva hesitated a moment, then slipped the ticket from its cover, put
+back the envelope at the bottom of the box and closed the lid. She found
+a hiding-place for the little square pasteboard before she returned the
+box and portfolio to the drawer and locked it.
+
+There was a tap at the door and hastily she replaced the key in her bag.
+
+"Come in," she said.
+
+She recognized the man who stood in the doorway as he who had carried
+her back to the room.
+
+There was a strangeness in his bearing which made her uneasy, a certain
+subdued hilarity which suggested drunkenness.
+
+"Don't make a noise," he whispered with a stifled chuckle, "if Gregory
+hears he'll raise fire."
+
+She saw that the key was in the lock on the outside of the door and this
+she watched. But he made no attempt to withdraw it and closed the door
+behind him softly.
+
+"My name is Bridgers," he whispered, "van Heerden has told you about
+me--Horace Bridgers, do you----?"
+
+He took a little tortoiseshell box from the pocket of his frayed
+waistcoat and opened it with a little kick of his middle finger. It was
+half-full of white powder that glittered in a stray ray of sunlight.
+"Try a sniff," he begged eagerly, "and all your troubles will
+go--phutt!"
+
+"Thank you, no"--she shook her head, looking at him with a perplexed
+smile--"I don't know what it is."
+
+"It's the white terror," he chuckled again, "better than the green--not
+so horribly musty as the green, eh?"
+
+"I'm not in the mood for terrors of any kind," she said, with a
+half-smile. She wondered why he had come, and had a momentary hope that
+he was ignorant of van Heerden's character.
+
+"All right"--he stuffed the box back into his waistcoat
+pocket--"_you're_ the loser, you'll never find heaven on earth!"
+
+She waited.
+
+All the time he was speaking, it seemed to her that he was on the _qui
+vive_ for some interruption from below. He would stop in his speech to
+turn a listening ear to the door. Moreover, she was relieved to see he
+made no attempt to advance any farther into the room. That he was under
+the influence of some drug she guessed. His eyes glittered with
+unnatural brilliance, his hands, discoloured and uncleanly, moved
+nervously and were never still.
+
+"I'm Bridgers," he said again. "I'm van Heerden's best man--rather a
+come down for the best analytical chemist that the school ever turned
+out, eh? Doing odd jobs for a dirty Deutscher!" He walked to the door,
+opened it and listened, then tiptoed across the room to her.
+
+"You know," he whispered, "you're van Heerden's girl--what is the game?"
+
+"What is----?" she stammered.
+
+"What is the game? What is it all about? I've tried to pump Gregory and
+Milsom, but they're mysterious. Curse all mysteries, my dear. What is
+the game? Why are they sending men to America, Canada, Australia and
+India? Come along and be a pal! Tell me! I've seen the office, I know
+all about it. Thousands of sealed envelopes filled with steamship
+tickets and money. Thousands of telegraph forms already addressed. You
+don't fool me!" He hissed the last words almost in her face. "Why is he
+employing the crocks and the throw-outs of science? Perrilli, Maxon,
+Boyd, Heyler--and me? If the game's square why doesn't he take the new
+men from the schools?"
+
+She shook her head, being, by now, less interested in such revelations
+as he might make, than in her own personal comfort. For his attitude was
+grown menacing ... then the great idea came to her. Evidently this man
+knew nothing of the circumstances under which she had come to the house.
+To him she was a wilful but willing assistant of the doctor, who for
+some reason or other it had been necessary to place under restraint.
+
+"I will tell you everything if you will take me back to my home," she
+said. "I cannot give you proofs here."
+
+She saw suspicion gather in his eyes. Then he laughed.
+
+"That won't wash," he sneered--"you know it all. I can't leave here," he
+said; "besides, you told me last time that there was nothing. I used to
+watch you working away at night," he went on to the girl's amazement.
+"I've sat looking at you for hours, writing and writing and writing."
+
+She understood now. She and Hilda Glaum were of about the same build,
+and she was mistaken for Hilda by this bemused man who had, in all
+probability, never seen the other girl face to face.
+
+"What made you run away?" he asked suddenly; but with a sudden resolve
+she brought him back to the subject he had started to discuss.
+
+"What is the use of my telling you?" she asked. "You know as much as I."
+
+"Only bits," he replied eagerly, "but I don't know van Heerden's game. I
+know why he's marrying this other girl, everybody knows that. When is
+the wedding?"
+
+"What other girl?" she asked.
+
+"Cresswell or Prédeaux, whatever she calls herself," said Bridgers
+carelessly. "She was a store girl, wasn't she?"
+
+"But"--she tried to speak calmly--"why do you think he wants to marry
+her?"
+
+He laughed softly.
+
+"Don't be silly," he said, "you can't fool me. Everybody knows she's
+worth a million."
+
+"Worth a million?" she gasped.
+
+"Worth a million." He smacked his lips and fumbled for the little box in
+his waistcoat pocket. "Try a sniff--you'll know what it feels like to be
+old man Millinborn's heiress."
+
+There was a sound in the hall below and he turned with an exaggerated
+start (she thought it theatrical but could not know of the jangled
+nerves of the drug-soddened man which magnified all sound to an
+intensity which was almost painful).
+
+He opened the door and slid out--and did not close the door behind him.
+
+Swiftly she followed, and as she reached the landing saw his head
+disappear down the stairs. She was in a blind panic; a thousand formless
+terrors gripped her and turned her resolute soul to water. She could
+have screamed her relief when she saw that the sliding door was
+half-open--the man had not stopped to close it--and she passed through
+and down the first flight. He had vanished before she reached the
+half-way landing and the hall below was empty. It was a wide hall,
+stone-flagged, with a glass door between her and the open portal.
+
+She flew down the stairs, pulled open the door and ran straight into van
+Heerden's arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE JEW OF CRACOW
+
+
+If there were committed in London the crime of the century--a crime so
+tremendous that the names of the chief actors in this grisly drama were
+on the lips of every man, woman and talkative child in Europe--you might
+walk into a certain department of Scotland Yard with the assurance that
+you would not meet within the confining walls of that bureau any police
+officer who was interested in the slightest, or who, indeed, had even
+heard of the occurrence save by accident. This department is known as
+the Parley Voos or P.V. Department, and concerns itself only in
+suspicious events beyond the territorial waters of Great Britain and
+Ireland. Its body is on the Thames Embankment, but its soul is at the
+Central Office, or at the Sûreté or even at the Yamen of the police
+minister of Pekin.
+
+It is sublimely ignorant of the masters of crime who dwell beneath the
+shadows of the Yard, but it could tell you, without stopping to look up
+reference, not only the names of the known gunmen of New York, but the
+composition of almost every secret society in China.
+
+A Pole had a quarrel with a Jew in the streets of Cracow, and they
+quarrelled over the only matter which is worthy of quarrel in that part
+of Poland. The sum in dispute was the comparatively paltry one of 260
+Kronen, but when the Jew was taken in a dying condition to the hospital
+he made a statement which was so curious that the Chief of Police in
+Cracow sent it on to Vienna and Vienna sent it to Berne and Berne
+scratched its chin thoughtfully and sent it forward to Paris, where it
+was distributed to Rio de Janeiro, New York, and London.
+
+The Assistant Chief of the P.V. Department came out of his room and
+drifted aimlessly into the uncomfortable bureau of Mr. McNorton.
+
+"There's a curious yarn through from Cracow," he said, "which might
+interest your friend Beale."
+
+"What is it?" asked McNorton, who invariably found the stories of the
+P.V. Department fascinating but profitless.
+
+"A man was murdered," said the P.V. man lightly, as though that were the
+least important feature of the story, "but before he pegged out he made
+a will or an assignment of his property to his son, in the course of
+which he said that none of his stocks--he was a corn factor--were to be
+sold under one thousand Kronen a bushel. That's about £30."
+
+"Corn at £30 a bushel?" said McNorton. "Was he delirious?"
+
+"Not at all," said the other. "He was a very well-known man in Cracow,
+one Zibowski, who during the late war was principal buying agent for the
+German Government. The Chief of the Police at Cracow apparently asked
+him if he wasn't suffering from illusions, and the man then made a
+statement that the German Government had an option on all the grain in
+Galicia, Hungary and the Ukraine at a lower price. Zibowski held out for
+better terms. It is believed that he was working with a member of the
+German Government who made a fortune in the war out of army contracts.
+In fact, he as good as let this out just before he died, when he spoke
+in his delirium of a wonderful invention which was being worked on
+behalf of the German Government, an invention called the Green Rust."
+
+McNorton whistled.
+
+"Is that all?" he said.
+
+"That's all," said the P.V. man. "I seem to remember that Beale had made
+one or two mysterious references to the Rust. Where is he now?"
+
+"He left town last night," replied McNorton.
+
+"Can you get in touch with him?"
+
+The other shook his head.
+
+"I suppose you are sending on a copy of this communication to the
+Cabinet," he said--"it may be rather serious. Whatever the scheme is, it
+is being worked in London, and van Heerden is the chief operator."
+
+He took down his hat and went out in search of Kitson, whom he found in
+the lobby of the hotel. James Kitson came toward him eagerly.
+
+"Have you news of Beale?"
+
+"He was at Kingston this morning," said McNorton, "with Parson Homo, but
+he had left. I was on the 'phone to the inspector at Kingston, who did
+not know very much and could give me no very definite news as to whether
+Beale had made his discovery. He interviewed the tramp early this
+morning, but apparently extracted very little that was helpful. As a
+matter of fact, I came to you to ask if he had got in touch with you."
+
+Kitson shook his head.
+
+"I want to see him about his Green Rust scare--Beale has gone
+single-handed into this matter," said the superintendent, shaking his
+head, "and he has played the lone game a little too long."
+
+"Is it very serious?"
+
+"It may be an international matter," replied McNorton gravely, "all that
+we know at present is this. A big plot is on foot to tamper with the
+food supplies of the world and the chief plotter is van Heerden. Beale
+knows more about the matter than any of us, but he only gives us
+occasional glimpses of the real situation. I have been digging out van
+Heerden's record without, however, finding anything very incriminating.
+Up to a point he seems to have been a model citizen, though his
+associates were not always of the best. He has been seen in the company
+of at least three people with a bad history. Milsom, a doctor, convicted
+of murder in the 'nineties; Bridgers, an American chemist with two
+convictions for illicit trading in drugs; Gregory--who seems to be his
+factotum and general assistant, convicted in Manchester for saccharine
+smuggling; and a girl called Glaum, who is an alien, charged during the
+war for failing to register."
+
+"But against van Heerden?"
+
+"Nothing. He has travelled a great deal in America and on the Continent.
+He was in Spain a few years ago and was suspected of being associated
+with the German Embassy. His association with the Millinborn murder you
+know."
+
+"Yes, I know that," said James Kitson bitterly.
+
+"Beale will have to tell us all he knows," McNorton went on, "and
+probably we can tell him something he doesn't know; namely, that van
+Heerden conducts a pretty expensive correspondence by cable with all
+parts of the world. Something has happened in Cracow which gives a value
+to all Beale's suspicions."
+
+Briefly he related the gist of the story which had reached him that
+morning.
+
+"It is incredible," said Kitson when the chief had finished. "It would
+be humanly impossible for the world to buy at that price. And there is
+no reason for it. It happens that I am interested in a milling
+corporation and I know that the world's crops are good--in fact, the
+harvest will be well above the average. I should say that the Cracow Jew
+was talking in delirium."
+
+But McNorton smiled indulgently.
+
+"I hope you're right," he said. "I hope the whole thing is a mare's nest
+and for once in my life I trust that the police clues are as wrong as
+hell. But, anyway, van Heerden is cabling mighty freely--and I want
+Beale!"
+
+But Beale was unreachable. A visit to his apartment produced no results.
+The "foreign gentleman" who on the previous day had called on van
+Heerden had been seen there that morning, but he, too, had vanished, and
+none of McNorton's watchers had been able to pick him up.
+
+McNorton shifted the direction of his search and dropped into the
+palatial establishment of Punsonby's. He strolled past the grill-hidden
+desk which had once held Oliva Cresswell, and saw out of the tail of his
+eye a stranger in her place and by her side the darkly taciturn Hilda
+Glaum.
+
+Mr. White, that pompous man, greeted him strangely. As the police chief
+came into the private office Mr. White half-rose, turned deadly pale and
+became of a sudden bereft of speech. McNorton recognized the symptoms
+from long acquaintance with the characteristics of detected criminals,
+and wondered how deeply this pompous man was committed to whatever
+scheme was hatching.
+
+"Ah--ah--Mr. McNorton!" stammered White, shaking like a leaf, "won't you
+sit down, please? To what--to what," he swallowed twice before he could
+get the words out, "to what am I indebted?"
+
+"Just called in to look you up," said McNorton genially. "Have you been
+losing any more--registered letters lately?"
+
+Mr. White subsided again into his chair.
+
+"Yes, yes--no, I mean," he said, "no--ah--thank you. It was kind of you
+to call, inspector----"
+
+"Superintendent," corrected the other good-humouredly.
+
+"A thousand pardons, superintendent," said Mr. White hastily, "no, sir,
+nothing so unfortunate."
+
+He shot a look half-fearful, half-resentful at the police officer.
+
+"And how is your friend Doctor van Heerden?"
+
+Mr. White twisted uncomfortably in his chair. Again his look of
+nervousness and apprehension.
+
+"Mr.--ah--van Heerden is not a friend of mine," he said, "a business
+acquaintance," he sighed heavily, "just a business acquaintance."
+
+The White he had known was not the White of to-day. The man looked
+older, his face was more heavily lined and his eyes were dark with
+weariness.
+
+"I suppose he's a pretty shrewd fellow," he remarked carelessly. "You
+are interested in some of his concerns, aren't you?"
+
+"Only one, only one," replied White sharply, "and I wish to Heaven----"
+
+He stopped himself.
+
+"And you wish you weren't, eh?"
+
+Again the older man wriggled in his chair.
+
+"Doctor van Heerden is very clever," he said; "he has great schemes, in
+one of which I am--ah--financially interested. That is all--I have put
+money into his--ah--syndicate, without, of course, knowing the nature of
+the work which is being carried out. That I would impress upon you."
+
+"You are a trusting investor," said the good-humoured McNorton.
+
+"I am a child in matters of finance," admitted Mr. White, but added
+quickly, "except, of course, in so far as the finance of Punsonby's,
+which is one of the soundest business concerns in London, Mr. McNorton.
+We pay our dividends regularly and our balance sheets are a model for
+the industrial world."
+
+"So I have heard," said McNorton dryly. "I am interested in syndicates,
+too. By the way, what is Doctor van Heerden's scheme?"
+
+Mr. White shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea," he confessed with a melancholy smile. "I
+suppose it is very foolish of me, but I have such faith in the doctor's
+genius that when he came to me and said: 'My dear White, I want you to
+invest a few thousand in one of my concerns,' I said: 'My dear doctor,
+here is my cheque, don't bother me about the details but send in my
+dividends regularly.' Ha! ha!"
+
+His laugh was hollow, and would not have deceived a child of ten.
+
+"So you invested £40,000----" began McNorton.
+
+"Forty thousand!" gasped Mr. White, "how did you know?"
+
+He went a trifle paler.
+
+"These things get about," said McNorton, "as I was going to say, you
+invested £40,000 without troubling to discover what sort of work the
+syndicate was undertaking. I am not speaking now as a police officer,
+Mr. White," he went on, and White did not disguise his relief, "but as
+an old acquaintance of yours."
+
+"Say friend," said the fervent Mr. White. "I have always regarded you,
+Mr. McNorton, as a friend of mine. Let me see, how long have we known
+one another? I think the first time we met was when Punsonby's was
+burgled in '93."
+
+"It's a long time," said McNorton; "but don't let us get off the subject
+of your investment, which interests me as a friend. You gave Doctor van
+Heerden all this money without even troubling to discover whether his
+enterprise was a legal one. I am not suggesting it was illegal," he
+said, as White opened his mouth to protest, "but it seems strange that
+you did not trouble to inquire."
+
+"Oh, of course, I inquired, naturally I inquired, Mr. McNorton," said
+White eagerly, "it was for some chemical process and I know nothing
+about chemistry. I don't mind admitting to you," he lowered his voice,
+though there was no necessity, "that I regret my investment very much.
+We business men have many calls. We cannot allow our money to be tied up
+for too long a time, and it happens--ah--that just at this moment I
+should be very glad, very glad indeed, to liquidate that investment."
+
+McNorton nodded. He knew a great deal more about White's financial
+embarrassments than that gentleman gave him credit for. He knew, for
+example, that the immaculate managing director of Punsonby's was in the
+hands of moneylenders, and that those moneylenders were squeezing him.
+He suspected that all was not well with Punsonby's. There had been
+curious rumours in the City amongst the bill discounters that Punsonby's
+"paper" left much to be desired.
+
+"Do you know the nationality of van Heerden?" he asked.
+
+"Dutch," replied Mr. White promptly.
+
+"Are you sure of this?"
+
+"I would stake my life on it," answered the heroic Mr. White.
+
+"As I came through to your office I saw a young lady at the cashier's
+desk--Miss Glaum, I think her name is. Is she Dutch, too?"
+
+"Miss Glaum--ah--well Miss Glaum." White hesitated. "A very nice,
+industrious girl, and a friend of Doctor van Heerden's. As a matter of
+fact, I engaged her at his recommendation. You see, I was under an
+obligation to the doctor. He had--ah--attended me in my illness."
+
+That this was untrue McNorton knew. White was one of those financial
+shuttlecocks which shrewd moneylenders toss from one to the other. White
+had been introduced by van Heerden to capital in a moment of hectic
+despair and had responded when his financial horizon was clearer by
+pledging his credit for the furtherance of van Heerden's scheme.
+
+"Of course you know that as a shareholder in van Heerden's syndicate you
+cannot escape responsibility for the purposes to which your money is
+put," he said, as he rose to go. "I hope you get your money back."
+
+"Do you think there is any doubt?" demanded White, in consternation.
+
+"There is always a doubt about getting money back from syndicates," said
+McNorton cryptically.
+
+"Please don't go yet." Mr. White passed round the end of his desk and
+intercepted the detective with unexpected agility, taking, so to speak,
+the door out of his hands and closing it. "I am alarmed, Mr. McNorton,"
+he said, as he led the other back to his chair, "I won't disguise it. I
+am seriously alarmed by what you have said. It is not the thought of
+losing the money, oh dear, no. Punsonby's would not be ruined by--ah--a
+paltry £40,000. It is, if I may be allowed to say so, the sinister
+suggestion in your speech, inspector--superintendent I mean. Is it
+possible"--he stood squarely in front of McNorton, his hands on his
+hips, his eyeglass dangling from his fastidious fingers and his head
+pulled back as though he wished to avoid contact with the possibility,
+"is it possible that in my ignorance I have been assisting to finance a
+scheme which is--ah--illegal, immoral, improper and contrary--ah--to the
+best interests of the common weal?"
+
+He shook his head as though he were unable to believe his own words.
+
+"Everything is possible in finance," said McNorton with a smile. "I am
+not saying that Doctor van Heerden's syndicate is an iniquitous one, I
+have not even seen a copy of his articles of association. Doubtless you
+could oblige me in that respect."
+
+"I haven't got such a thing," denied Mr. White vigorously, "the
+syndicate was not registered. It was, so to speak, a private concern."
+
+"But the exploitation of Green Rust?" suggested the superintendent, and
+the man's face lost the last vestige of colour it possessed.
+
+"The Green Rust?" he faltered. "I have heard the phrase. I know
+nothing----"
+
+"You know nothing, but suspect the worst," said McNorton. "Now I am
+going to speak plainly to you. The reason you know nothing about this
+syndicate of van Heerden's is because you had a suspicion that it was
+being formed for an illegal purpose--please don't interrupt me--you know
+nothing because you did not want to know. I doubt even whether you
+deceived yourself. You saw a chance of making big money, Mr. White, and
+big money has always had an attraction for you. There isn't a fool's
+scheme that was ever hatched in a back alley bar that you haven't
+dropped money over. And you saw a chance here, more tangible than any
+that had been presented to you."
+
+"I swear to you----" began White.
+
+"The time has not come for you to swear anything," said McNorton
+sternly, "there is only one place where a man need take his oath, and
+that is on the witness-stand. I will tell you this frankly, that we are
+as much in the dark as you pretend to be. There is only one man who
+knows or guesses the secret of the Green Rust, and that man is Beale."
+
+"Beale!"
+
+"You have met the gentleman, I believe? I hope you don't have to meet
+him again. The Green Rust may mean little. It may mean no more than that
+you will lose your money, and I should imagine that is the least which
+will happen to you. On the other hand, Mr. White, I do not disguise from
+you the fact that it may also mean your death at the hands of the law."
+
+White made a gurgling noise in his throat and held on to the desk for
+support.
+
+"I have only the haziest information as to what it is all about, but
+somehow"--McNorton knit his brows in a frown and was speaking half to
+himself--"I seem to feel that it is a bad business--a damnably bad
+business."
+
+He took up his hat from the table and walked to the door.
+
+"I don't know whether to say au revoir or good-bye," he said with
+twitching lips.
+
+"Good-bye--ah--is a very good old-fashioned word," said Mr. White, in an
+heroic attempt to imitate the other's good humour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BRIDGERS BREAKS LOOSE
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden sat by the side of the big four-poster bed, where the
+girl lay, and his cold blue eyes held a spark of amusement.
+
+"You look very foolish," he said.
+
+Oliva Cresswell turned her head sharply so as to remove the man from her
+line of vision.
+
+More than this she could not do, for her hands and feet were strapped,
+and on the pillow, near her head, was a big bath-towel saturated with
+water which had been employed in stifling her healthy screams which
+marked her return to understanding.
+
+"You look very foolish," said the doctor, chewing at the end of his
+cigar, "and you look no more foolish than you have been. Bridgers let
+you out, eh? Nice man, Mr. Bridgers; what had he been telling you?"
+
+She turned her head again and favoured him with a stare. Then she looked
+at the angry red mark on her wrists where the straps chafed.
+
+"How Hun-like!" she said; but this time he smiled.
+
+"You will not make me lose my temper again, Little-wife-to-be," he
+mocked her; "you may call me Hun or Heinz or Fritz or any of the
+barbarous and vulgar names which the outside world employ to vilify my
+countrymen, but nothing you say will distress or annoy me. To-morrow you
+and I will be man and wife."
+
+"This is not Germany," she said scornfully. "You cannot make a woman
+marry you against her will, this is----"
+
+"The land of the free," he interrupted suavely. "Yes--I know those
+lands, on both sides of the Atlantic. But even there curious things
+happen. And you're going to marry me--you will say 'Yes' to the sleek
+English clergyman when he asks you whether you will take this man to be
+your married husband, to love and cherish and all that sort of thing,
+you'll say 'Yes.'"
+
+"I shall say 'No!'" she said steadily.
+
+"You will say 'Yes,'" he smiled. "I had hoped to be able to give
+sufficient time to you so that I might persuade you to act sensibly. I
+could have employed arguments which I think would have convinced you
+that there are worse things than marriage with me."
+
+"I cannot think of any," she replied coldly.
+
+"Then you are singularly dense," said the doctor. "I have already told
+you the conditions under which that marriage will take place. There
+might be no marriage, you know, and a different end to this adventure,"
+he said, significantly, and she shivered.
+
+He said nothing more for five minutes, simply sitting biting at the
+cigar between his teeth and looking at her blankly, as though his
+thoughts were far away and she was the least of the problems which
+confronted him.
+
+"I know it is absurd to ask you," he said suddenly, "but I presume you
+have not devoted any of your studies to the question of capital
+punishment. I see you haven't; but there is one interesting fact about
+the execution of criminals which is not generally known to the public,
+and it is that in many countries, my own for example, before a man is
+led to execution he is doped with a drug which I will call 'Bromocine.'
+Does that interest you?"
+
+She made no reply, and he laughed quietly.
+
+"It should interest you very much," he said. "The effect of Bromocine,"
+he went on, speaking with the quiet precision of one who was lecturing
+on the subject to an interested audience, "is peculiar. It reduces the
+subject to a condition of extreme lassitude, so that really nothing
+matters or seems to matter. Whilst perfectly conscious the subject goes
+obediently to his death, behaves normally and does just what he is
+told--in fact, it destroys the will."
+
+"Why do you tell me this?" she asked, a sudden fear gripping her heart.
+
+He half-turned in his chair, reached out his hand and took a little
+black case from the table near the window. This he laid on the bed and
+opened, and she watched him, fascinated. He took a tiny bottle
+containing a colourless liquid, and with great care laid it on the
+coverlet. Then he extracted a small hypodermic syringe and a
+needle-pointed nozzle. He uncorked the bottle, inserted the syringe and
+filled it, then he screwed on the needle, pressed the plunger until a
+fine jet leapt in the air, then he laid it carefully back in the case.
+
+"You say you will not marry me and I presume that you would make a scene
+when I bring in the good English parson to perform the ceremony. I had
+hoped," he said apologetically, "to have given you a wedding with all
+the pomp and circumstance which women, as I understand, love. Failing
+that, I hoped for a quiet wedding in the little church out yonder." He
+jerked his head toward the window. "But now I am afraid that I must ask
+his reverence to carry out the ceremony in this house."
+
+He rose, leant over her and deftly pulled back her sleeve.
+
+"If you scream I shall smother you with the towel," he said. "This won't
+hurt you very much. As I was going to say, you will be married here
+because you are in a delicate state of health and you will say 'Yes.'"
+
+She winced as the needle punctured the skin.
+
+"It won't hurt you for very long," he said calmly. "You will say 'Yes,'
+I repeat, because I shall tell you to say 'Yes.'"
+
+Suddenly the sharp pricking pain in her arm ceased. She was conscious
+of a sensation as though her arm was being blown up like a bicycle tyre,
+but it was not unpleasant. He withdrew the needle and kept his finger
+pressed upon the little red wound where it had gone in.
+
+"I shall do this to you again to-night," he said, "and you will not feel
+it at all, and to-morrow morning, and you will not care very much what
+happens. I hope it will not be necessary to give you a dose to-morrow
+afternoon."
+
+"I shall not always be under the influence of this drug," she said
+between her teeth, "and there will be a time of reckoning for you, Dr.
+van Heerden."
+
+"By which time," he said calmly, "I shall have committed a crime so
+wonderful and so enormous that the mere offence of 'administering a
+noxious drug'--that is the terminology which describes the offence--will
+be of no importance and hardly worth the consideration of the Crown
+officers. Now I think I can unfasten you." He loosened and removed the
+straps at her wrists and about her feet and put them in his pocket.
+
+"You had better get up and walk about," he said, "or you will be stiff.
+I am really being very kind to you if you only knew it. I am too big to
+be vindictive. And, by the way, I had an interesting talk with your
+friend, Mr. Beale, this afternoon, a persistent young man who has been
+having me shadowed all day." He laughed quietly. "If I hadn't to go back
+to the surgery for the Bromocine I should have missed our very
+interesting conversation. That young man is very much in love with
+you"--he looked amusedly at the growing red in her face. "He is very
+much in love with you," he repeated. "What a pity! What a thousand
+pities!"
+
+"How soon will this drug begin to act?" she asked.
+
+"Are you frightened?"
+
+"No, but I should welcome anything which made me oblivious to your
+presence--you are not exactly a pleasant companion," she said, with a
+return to the old tone he knew so well.
+
+"Content yourself, little person," he said with simulated affection.
+"You will soon be rid of me."
+
+"Why do you want to marry me?"
+
+"I can tell you that now," he said: "Because you are a very rich woman
+and I want your money, half of which comes to me on my marriage."
+
+"Then the man spoke the truth!" She sat up suddenly, but the effort made
+her head swim.
+
+He caught her by the shoulders and laid her gently down.
+
+"What man--not that babbling idiot, Bridgers?" He said something, but
+instantly recovered his self-possession. "Keep quiet," he said with
+professional sternness. "Yes, you are the heiress of an interesting
+gentleman named John Millinborn."
+
+"John Millinborn!" she gasped. "The man who was murdered!"
+
+"The man who was killed," he corrected. "'Murder' is a stupid, vulgar
+word. Yes, my dear, you are his heiress. He was your uncle, and he left
+you something over six million dollars. That is to say he left us that
+colossal sum."
+
+"But I don't understand. What does it mean?"
+
+"Your name is Prédeaux. Your father was the ruffian----"
+
+"I know, I know," she cried. "The man in the hotel. The man who died. My
+father!"
+
+"Interesting, isn't it?" he said calmly, "like something out of a book.
+Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do
+well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother
+died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty
+and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that that was the truth."
+
+"My father!" she murmured.
+
+She lay, her face as white as the pillow, her eyes closed.
+
+"John Millinborn left a fortune for you--and I think that you might as
+well know the truth now--the money was left in trust. You were not to
+know that you were an heiress until you were married. He was afraid of
+some fortune-hunter ruining your young life as Prédeaux ruined your
+mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now I don't intend ruining your
+life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the
+capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young
+woman."
+
+"I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it," she muttered.
+
+He rose from the chair and bent over her.
+
+"My young friend, you are going to sleep," he said to himself, waited a
+little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him.
+
+He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the
+girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who
+had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man.
+
+"Hello, Bridgers," said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been
+talking."
+
+"Well, who doesn't?" snarled the man.
+
+He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took
+a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously.
+
+"That stuff will kill you one of these days," said van Heerden.
+
+"It will make him better-tempered," growled the hairless man. "I don't
+mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between
+dopes that they get on my nerves."
+
+"Dr. Milsom speaks like a Christian and an artist," said Bridgers, with
+sudden cheerfulness. "If I didn't dope, van Heerden, I should not be
+working in your beastly factory, but would probably be one of the
+leading analytical chemists in America. But I'll go back to do my
+chore," he said rising. "I suppose I get a little commission for
+restoring your palpitating bride? Milsom tells me that it is she. I
+thought it was the other dame--the Dutch girl. I guess I was a bit
+dopey."
+
+Van Heerden frowned.
+
+"You take too keen an interest in my affairs," he said.
+
+"Aw! You're getting touchy. If I didn't get interested in something I'd
+go mad," chuckled Bridgers.
+
+He had reached that stage of cocaine intoxication when the world was a
+very pleasant place indeed and full of subject for jocularity.
+
+"This place is getting right on my nerves," he went on, "couldn't I go
+to London? I'm stagnating here. Why, some of the stuff I cultivated the
+other day wouldn't react. Isn't that so, Milsom? I get so dull in this
+hole that all bugs look alike to me."
+
+Van Heerden glanced at the man who was addressed as Dr. Milsom and the
+latter nodded.
+
+"Let him go back," he said, "I'll look after him. How's the lady?" asked
+Milsom when they were alone.
+
+The other made a gesture and Dr. Milsom nodded.
+
+"It's good stuff," he said. "I used to give it to lunatics in the days
+of long ago."
+
+Van Heerden did not ask him what those days were. He never pryed too
+closely into the early lives of his associates, but Milsom's history was
+public property. Four years before he had completed a "life sentence" of
+fifteen years for a crime which had startled the world in '99.
+
+"How are things generally?" he asked.
+
+Van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"For the first time I am getting nervous," he said. "It isn't so much
+the fear of Beale that rattles me, but the sordid question of money. The
+expenses are colossal and continuous."
+
+"Hasn't your--Government"--Milsom balked at the word--"haven't your
+friends abroad moved in the matter yet?"
+
+Van Heerden shook his head.
+
+"I am very hopeful there," he said. "I have been watching the papers
+very closely, especially the Agrarian papers, and, unless I am mistaken,
+there is a decided movement in the direction of support. But I can't
+depend on that. The marriage must go through to-morrow."
+
+"White is getting nervous, too," he went on. "He is pestering me about
+the money I owe him, or rather the syndicate owes him. He's on the verge
+of ruin."
+
+Milsom made a little grimace.
+
+"Then he'll squeal," he said, "those kind of people always do. You'll
+have to keep him quiet. You say the marriage is coming off to-morrow?"
+
+"I have notified the parson," said van Heerden. "I told him my fiancée
+is too ill to attend the church and the ceremony must be performed
+here."
+
+Milsom nodded. He had risen from the table and was looking out upon the
+pleasant garden at the rear of the house.
+
+"A man could do worse than put in three or four weeks here," he said.
+"Look at that spread of green."
+
+He pointed to an expanse of waving grasses, starred with the
+vari-coloured blossoms of wild flowers.
+
+"I was never a lover of nature," said van Heerden, carelessly.
+
+Milsom grunted.
+
+"You have never been in prison," he said cryptically. "Is it time to
+give your lady another dose?"
+
+"Not for two hours," said van Heerden. "I will play you at piquet."
+
+The cards were shuffled and the hands dealt when there was a scamper of
+feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a
+soiled white smock and his face was distorted with terror.
+
+"M'sieur, m'sieur," he cried, "that imbecile Bridgers!"
+
+"What's wrong?" Van Heerden sprang to his feet.
+
+"I think he is mad. He is dancing about the grounds, singing, and he has
+with him the preparation!"
+
+Van Heerden rapped out an oath and leapt through the door, the doctor at
+his heels. They took the short cut and ran up the steps leading from the
+well courtyard, and bursting through the bushes came within sight of the
+offender.
+
+But he was not dancing now. He was standing with open mouth, staring
+stupidly about him.
+
+"I dropped it, I dropped it!" he stammered.
+
+There was no need for van Heerden to ask what he had dropped, for the
+green lawn which had excited Milsom's admiration was no longer to be
+seen. In its place was a black irregular patch of earth which looked as
+though it had been blasted in the furnaces of hell, and the air was
+filled with the pungent mustiness of decay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+OLIVA IS WILLING
+
+
+It seemed that a grey curtain of mist hung before Oliva's eyes. It was a
+curtain spangled with tiny globes of dazzling light which grew from
+nothing and faded to nothing. Whenever she fixed her eyes upon one of
+these it straightway became two and three and then an unaccountable
+quantity.
+
+She felt that she ought to see faces of people she knew, for one half of
+her brain had cleared and was calmly diagnosing her condition, but doing
+so as though she were somebody else. She was emerging from a drugged
+sleep; she could regard herself in a curious impersonal fashion which
+was most interesting. And people who are drugged see things and people.
+Strange mirages of the mind arise and stranger illusions are suffered.
+Yet she saw nothing save this silvery grey curtain with its drifting
+spots of light and heard nothing except a voice saying, "Come along,
+come along, wake up." A hundred, a thousand times this monotonous order
+was repeated, and then the grey curtain faded and she was lying on the
+bed, her head throbbing, her eyes hot and prickly, and two men were
+looking down at her, one of them a big barefaced man with a coarse mouth
+and sunken eyes.
+
+"Was it my father really?" she asked drowsily.
+
+"I was afraid of that second dose you gave her last night," said Milsom.
+"You are getting a condition of coma and that's the last thing you
+want."
+
+"She'll be all right now," replied van Heerden, but his face was
+troubled. "The dose was severe--yet she seemed healthy enough to stand a
+three-minim injection."
+
+Milsom shook his head.
+
+"She'll be all right now, but she might as easily have died," he said.
+"I shouldn't repeat the dose."
+
+"There's no need," said van Heerden.
+
+"What time is it?" asked the girl, and sat up. She felt very weak and
+weary, but she experienced no giddiness.
+
+"It is twelve o'clock; you have been sleeping since seven last night.
+Let me see if you can stand. Get up."
+
+She obeyed meekly. She had no desire to do anything but what she was
+told. Her mental condition was one of complete dependence, and had she
+been left to herself she would have been content to lie down again.
+
+Yet she felt for a moment a most intense desire to propound some sort of
+plan which would give this man the money without going through a
+marriage ceremony. That desire lasted a minute and was succeeded by an
+added weariness as though this effort at independent thought had added a
+new burden to her strength. She knew and was mildly amazed at the
+knowledge that she was under the influence of a drug which was
+destroying her will, yet she felt no particular urge to make a fight for
+freedom of determination. "Freedom of determination." She repeated the
+words, having framed her thoughts with punctilious exactness, and
+remembered that that was a great war phrase which one was constantly
+discovering in the newspapers. All her thoughts were like this--they had
+the form of marshalled language, so that even her speculations were
+punctuated.
+
+"Walk over to the window," said the doctor, and she obeyed, though her
+knees gave way with every step she took. "Now come back--good, you're
+all right."
+
+She looked at him, and did not flinch when he laid his two hands on her
+shoulders.
+
+"You are going to be married this afternoon--that's all right, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "that is all right."
+
+"And you'll say 'yes' when I tell you to say 'yes,' won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I'll say that," she said.
+
+All the time she knew that this was monstrously absurd. All the time she
+knew that she did not wish to marry this man. Fine sentences, pompously
+framed, slowly formed in her mind such as: "This outrage will not go
+unpunished, comma, and you will suffer for this, comma, Dr. van Heerden,
+full stop."
+
+But the effort of creating the protest exhausted her so that she could
+not utter it. And she knew that the words were stilted and artificial,
+and the working-cells of her brain whispered that she was recalling and
+adapting something she had heard at the theatre. She wanted to do the
+easiest thing, and it seemed absurdly easy to say "yes."
+
+"You will stay here until the parson comes," said van Heerden, "and you
+will not attempt to escape, will you?"
+
+"No, I won't attempt to escape," she said.
+
+"Lie down."
+
+She sat on the bed and swung her feet clear of the ground, settling
+herself comfortably.
+
+"She'll do," said van Heerden, satisfied. "Come downstairs, Milsom, I
+have something to say to you."
+
+So they left her, lying with her cheek on her hand, more absorbed in the
+pattern on the wall-paper than in the tremendous events which
+threatened.
+
+"Well, what's the trouble?" asked Milsom, seating himself in his
+accustomed place by the table.
+
+"This," said van Heerden, and threw a letter across to him. "It came by
+one of my scouts this morning--I didn't go home last night. I cannot
+risk being shadowed here."
+
+Milsom opened the letter slowly and read:
+
+
+     "A man called upon you yesterday afternoon and has made several
+     calls since. He was seen by Beale, who cross-examined him. Man
+     calls himself Stardt, but is apparently not British. He is staying
+     at Saraband Hotel, Berners Street."
+
+
+"Who is this?" asked Milsom.
+
+"I dare not hope----" replied the doctor, pacing the room nervously.
+
+"Suppose you dared, what form would your hope take?"
+
+"I told you the other day," said van Heerden, stopping before his
+companion, "that I had asked my Government to assist me. Hitherto they
+have refused, that is why I am so desperately anxious to get this
+marriage through. I must have money. The Paddington place costs a small
+fortune--you go back there to-night, by the way----"
+
+Milsom nodded.
+
+"Has the Government relented?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. I told you that certain significant items in the East
+Prussian newspapers seemed to hint that they were coming to my
+assistance. They have sent no word to me, but if they should agree they
+would send their agreement by messenger."
+
+"And you think this may be the man?"
+
+"It is likely."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"I have sent Gregory up to see the man. If he is what I hope he may be,
+Gregory will bring him here--I have given him the password."
+
+"What difference will it make?" asked Milsom. "You are on to a big
+fortune, anyway."
+
+"Fortune?" The eyes of Dr. van Heerden sparkled and he seemed to expand
+at the splendour of the vision which was conjured to his eyes.
+
+"No fortune which mortal man has ever possessed will be comparable. All
+the riches of all the world will lie at my feet. Milliards upon
+milliards----"
+
+"In fact, a lot of money," said the practical Dr. Milsom. "'Umph! I
+don't quite see how you are going to do it. You haven't taken me very
+much into your confidence, van Heerden."
+
+"You know everything."
+
+Milsom chuckled.
+
+"I know that in the safe of my office you have a thousand sealed
+envelopes addressed, as I gather, to all the scallywags of the world,
+and I know pretty well what you intend doing; but how do you benefit?
+And how do I benefit?"
+
+Van Heerden had recovered his self-possession.
+
+"You have already benefited," he said shortly, "more than you could have
+hoped."
+
+There was an awkward pause; then Milsom asked:
+
+"What effect is it going to have upon this country?"
+
+"It will ruin England," said van Heerden fervently, and the old
+criminal's eyes narrowed.
+
+"'Umph!" he said again, and there was a note in his voice which made van
+Heerden look at him quickly.
+
+"This country hasn't done very much for you," he sneered.
+
+"And I haven't done much for this country--yet," countered the other.
+
+The doctor laughed.
+
+"You're turning into a patriot in your old age," he said.
+
+"Something like that," said Milsom easily. "There used to be a fellow at
+Portland--you have probably run across him--a clever crook named Homo,
+who used to be a parson before he got into trouble."
+
+"I never met the gentleman, and talking of parsons," he said, looking at
+his watch, "our own padre is late. But I interrupted you."
+
+"He was a man whose tongue I loathed, and he hated me poisonously," said
+Milsom, with a little grimace, "but he used to say that patriotism was
+the only form of religion which survived penal servitude. And I suppose
+that's the case. I hate the thought of putting this country in wrong."
+
+"You'll get over your scruples," said the other easily. "You are putting
+yourself in right, anyway. Think of the beautiful time you're going to
+have, my friend."
+
+"I think of nothing else," said Milsom, "but still----" He shook his
+head.
+
+Van Heerden had taken up the paper he had brought down and was reading
+it, and Milsom noted that he was perusing the produce columns.
+
+"When do we make a start?"
+
+"Next week," said the doctor. "I want to finish up the Paddington
+factory and get away."
+
+"Where will you go?"
+
+"I shall go to the Continent," replied van Heerden, folding up the paper
+and laying it on the table. "I can conduct operations from there with
+greater ease. Gregory goes to Canada. Mitchell and Samps have already
+organized Australia, and our three men in India will have ready
+workers."
+
+"What about the States?"
+
+"That has an organization of its own," Van Heerden said; "it is costing
+me a lot of money. All the men except you are at their stations waiting
+for the word 'Go.' You will take the Canadian supplies with you."
+
+"Do I take Bridgers?"
+
+Van Heerden shook his head.
+
+"I can't trust that fool. Otherwise he would be an ideal assistant for
+you. Your work is simple. Before you leave I will give you a sealed
+envelope containing a list of all our Canadian agents. You will also
+find two code sentences, one of which means 'Commence operations,' and
+the other, 'Cancel all instructions and destroy apparatus.'"
+
+"Will the latter be necessary?" asked Milsom.
+
+"It may be, though it is very unlikely. But I must provide against all
+contingencies. I have made the organization as simple as possible. I
+have a chief agent in every country, and on receipt of my message by the
+chief of the organization, it will be repeated to the agents, who also
+have a copy of the code."
+
+"It seems too easy," said Milsom. "What chance is there of detection?"
+
+"None whatever," said the doctor promptly. "Our only danger for the
+moment is this man Beale, but he knows nothing, and so long as we only
+have him guessing there is no great harm done--and, anyway, he hasn't
+much longer to guess."
+
+"It seems much too simple," said Milsom, shaking his head.
+
+Van Heerden had heard a footfall in the hall, stepped quickly to the
+door and opened it.
+
+"Well, Gregory?" he said.
+
+"He is here," replied the other, and waved his hand to a figure who
+stood behind him. "Also, the parson is coming down the road."
+
+"Good, let us have our friend in."
+
+The pink-faced foreigner with his stiff little moustache and his yellow
+boots stepped into the room, clicked his heels and bowed.
+
+"Have I the honour of addressing Doctor von Heerden?"
+
+"Van Heerden," corrected the doctor with a smile "that is my name."
+
+Both men spoke in German.
+
+"I have a letter for your excellency," said the messenger. "I have been
+seeking you for many days and I wish to report that unauthorized persons
+have attempted to take this from me."
+
+Van Heerden nodded, tore open the envelope and read the half a dozen
+lines.
+
+"The test-word is 'Breslau,'" he said in a low voice, and the messenger
+beamed.
+
+"I have the honour to convey to you the word." He whispered something in
+van Heerden's ear and Milsom, who did not understand German very well
+and had been trying to pick up a word or two, saw the look of exultation
+that came to the doctor's face.
+
+He leapt back and threw out his arms, and his strong voice rang with the
+words which the German hymnal has made famous:
+
+"Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt, Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt!"
+
+"What are you thanking God about?" asked Milsom.
+
+"It's come, it's come!" cried van Heerden, his eyes ablaze. "The
+Government is with me; behind me, my beautiful country. Oh, Gott sei
+Dank!"
+
+"The parson," warned Milsom.
+
+A young man stood looking through the open door.
+
+"The parson, yes," said van Heerden, "there's no need for it, but we'll
+have this wedding. Yes, we'll have it! Come in, sir."
+
+He was almost boyishly jovial. Milsom had never seen him like that
+before.
+
+"Come in, sir."
+
+"I am sorry to hear your fiancée is ill," said the curate.
+
+"Yes, yes, but that will not hinder the ceremony. I'll go myself and
+prepare her."
+
+Milsom had walked round the table to the window, and it was he who
+checked the doctor as he was leaving the room.
+
+"Doctor," he said, "come here."
+
+Van Heerden detected a strain of anxiety in the other's voice.
+
+"What is it?" he said.
+
+"Do you hear somebody speaking?"
+
+They stood by the window and listened intently.
+
+"Come with me," said the doctor, and he walked noiselessly and ascended
+the stairs, followed more slowly by his heavier companion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE MARRIAGE
+
+
+A quarter of a mile from Deans Folly a motor-car was halted on the side
+of a hill overlooking the valley in which van Heerden's house was set.
+
+"That's the house," said Beale, consulting the map, "and that wall that
+runs along the road is the wall the tramp described."
+
+"You seem to put a lot of faith in the statement of a man suffering from
+delirium tremens," said Parson Homo dryly.
+
+"He was not suffering from delirium tremens this morning. You didn't see
+him?"
+
+Homo shook his head.
+
+"I was in London fixing the preliminaries of your nuptials," he said
+sarcastically. "It may be the house," he admitted; "where is the
+entrance?"
+
+"There's a road midway between here and the river and a private road
+leading off," said Beale; "the gate, I presume, is hidden somewhere in
+those bushes."
+
+He raised a pair of field-glasses and focused them.
+
+"Yes, the gate's there," he said. "Do you see that man?"
+
+Homo took the glasses and looked.
+
+"Looks like a watcher," he said, "and if it is your friend's place the
+gate will be locked and barred. Why don't you get a warrant?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"He'd get wind of it and be gone. No, our way in is over the wall. The
+'hobo' said there's a garden door somewhere."
+
+They left the car and walked down the hill and presently came to a
+corner of the high wall which surrounded Deans Folly.
+
+Beale passed on ahead.
+
+"Here's the door," he said.
+
+He tried it gingerly and it gave a little.
+
+"It's clogged, and you won't get it open," said Homo; "it's the wall or
+nothing."
+
+Beale looked up and down the road. There was nobody in sight and he made
+a leap, caught the top of the wall and drew himself up. Luckily the
+usual _chevaux de frise_ was absent. Beneath him and a little to the
+right was a shed built against the wall, the door of which was closed.
+
+He signalled Homo to follow and dropped to the ground. In a minute both
+men were sheltering in the clump of bushes where on the previous day
+Oliva had waited before making a dart for the garden door.
+
+"There's been a fire here," said Homo in a low voice, and pointed to a
+big ugly patch of black amidst the green.
+
+Beale surveyed it carefully, then wormed his way through the bushes
+until he was within reach of the ruined plot. He stretched out his hand
+and pulled in a handful of the debris, examined it carefully and stuffed
+it into his pocket.
+
+"You are greatly interested in a grass fire," said Homo curiously.
+
+"Yes, aren't I?" replied Beale.
+
+They spent the next hour reconnoitring the ground. Once the door of the
+wall-shed opened, two men came out and walked to the house, and they had
+to lie motionless until after a seemingly interminable interval they
+returned again, stopping in the middle of the black patch to talk.
+Beale saw one pointing to the ruin and the other shook his head and they
+both returned to the shed and the door closed behind them.
+
+"There's somebody coming down the main drive," whispered Homo.
+
+They were now near the house and from where they lay had a clear view of
+fifty yards of the drive.
+
+"It's a brother brush!" said Homo, in a chuckling whisper.
+
+"A what?" asked Beale.
+
+"A parson."
+
+"A parson?"
+
+He focused his glasses. Some one in clerical attire accompanied by the
+man whom Beale recognized as the guard of the gate, was walking quickly
+down the drive. There was no time to be lost. But now for the first time
+doubts assailed him. His great scheme seemed more fantastic and its
+difficulties more real. What could be easier than to spring out and
+intercept the clergyman, but would that save the girl? What force did
+the house hold? He had to deal with men who would stop short at nothing
+to achieve their purpose and in particular one man who had not hesitated
+at murder.
+
+He felt his heart thumping, not at the thought of danger, though danger
+he knew was all round, but from sheer panic that he himself was about to
+play an unworthy part. Whatever fears or doubts he may have had suddenly
+fell away from him and he rose to his knees, for not twenty yards away
+at a window, her hands grasping the bars, her apathetic eyes looking
+listlessly toward where he crouched, was Oliva Cresswell.
+
+Regardless of danger, he broke cover and ran toward her.
+
+"Miss Cresswell," he called.
+
+She looked at him across the concrete well without astonishment and
+without interest.
+
+"It is you," she said, with extraordinary calm.
+
+He stood on the brink of the well hesitating. It was too far to leap and
+he remembered that behind the lilac bush he had seen a builder's plank.
+This he dragged out and passed it across the chasm, leaning the other
+end upon a ledge of brickwork which butted from the house.
+
+He stepped quickly across, gripped the bars and found a foothold on the
+ledge, the girl standing watching him without any sign of interest. He
+knew something was wrong. He could not even guess what that something
+was. This was not the girl he knew, but an Oliva Cresswell from whom all
+vitality and life had been sapped.
+
+"You know me?" he said. "I am Mr. Beale."
+
+"I know you are Mr. Beale," she replied evenly.
+
+"I have come to save you," he said rapidly. "Will you trust me? I want
+you to trust me," he said earnestly. "I want you to summon every atom of
+faith you have in human nature and invest it in me. Will you do this for
+me?"
+
+"I will do this for you," she said, like a child repeating a lesson.
+
+"I--I want you to marry me." He realized as he said these words in what
+his fear was founded. He knew now that it was her refusal even to go
+through the form of marriage which he dared not face.
+
+The truth leapt up to him and sent the blood pulsing through his head,
+that behind and beyond his professional care for her he loved her. He
+waited with bated breath, expecting her amazement, her indignation, her
+distress. But she was serene and untroubled, did not so much as raise
+her eyelids by the fraction of an inch as she answered:
+
+"I will marry you."
+
+He tried to speak but could only mutter a hoarse, "Thank you."
+
+He turned his head. Homo stood at the end of the plank and he beckoned
+him.
+
+Parson Homo came to the centre of the frail bridge, slipped a Prayer
+Book from his tail pocket and opened it.
+
+"Dearly beloved, we are come together here in the sight of God to join
+together this Man and this Woman in Holy Matrimony....
+
+"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the dreadful Day of
+Judgment when the secret of all hearts shall be disclosed that if either
+of you know any impediment why ye may not be joined together in
+Matrimony ye do now confess it."
+
+Beale's lips were tight pressed. The girl was looking serenely upward to
+a white cloud that sailed across the western skies.
+
+Homo read quickly, his enunciation beautifully clear, and Beale found
+himself wondering when last this man had performed so sacred an office.
+He asked the inevitable question and Beale answered. Homo hesitated,
+then turned to the girl.
+
+"Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband to live together after
+God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and
+serve him, love, honour and keep him in sickness and in health; and
+forsaking all others keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall
+live?"
+
+The girl did not immediately answer, and the pause was painful to the
+two men, but for different reasons. Then she suddenly withdrew her gaze
+from the sky and looked Homo straight in the face.
+
+"I will," she said.
+
+The next question in the service he dispensed with. He placed their
+hands together, and together repeating his words, they plighted their
+troth. Homo leant forward and again joined their hands and a note of
+unexpected solemnity vibrated in his voice when he spoke.
+
+"Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder."
+
+Beale drew a deep breath then:
+
+"Very pretty indeed," said a voice.
+
+The detective swung across the window to bring the speaker into a line
+of fire.
+
+"Put down your gun, admirable Mr. Beale." Van Heerden stood in the
+centre of the room and the bulky figure of Milsom filled the doorway.
+
+"Very pretty indeed, and most picturesque," said van Heerden. "I didn't
+like to interrupt the ceremony. Perhaps you will now come into the
+house, Mr. Beale, and I will explain a few things to you. You need not
+trouble about your--wife. She will not be harmed."
+
+Beale, revolver still in hand, made his way to the door and was
+admitted.
+
+"You had better come along, Homo," he said, "we may have to bluff this
+out."
+
+Van Heerden was waiting for him in the hall and invited him no farther.
+
+"You are perfectly at liberty to take away your wife," said van Heerden;
+"she will probably explain to you that I have treated her with every
+consideration. Here she is."
+
+Oliva was descending the stairs with slow, deliberate steps.
+
+"I might have been very angry with you," van Heerden went on, with that
+insolent drawl of his; "happily I do not find it any longer necessary to
+marry Miss Cresswell. I was just explaining to this gentleman"--he
+pointed to the pallid young curate in the background--"when your voices
+reached me. Nevertheless, I think it only right to tell you that your
+marriage is not a legal one, though I presume you are provided with a
+special licence."
+
+"Why is it illegal?" asked Beale.
+
+He wondered if Parson Homo had been recognized.
+
+"In the first place because it was not conducted in the presence of
+witnesses," said van Heerden.
+
+It was Homo who laughed.
+
+"I am afraid that would make it illegal but for the fact that you
+witnessed the ceremony by your own confession, and so presumably did
+your fat friend behind you."
+
+Mr. Milsom scowled.
+
+"You were always a bitter dog to me, Parson," he said, "but I can give
+you a reason why it's illegal," he said triumphantly. "That man is
+Parson Homo, a well-known crook who was kicked out of the Church fifteen
+years ago. I worked alongside him in Portland."
+
+Homo smiled crookedly.
+
+"You are right up to a certain point, Milsom," he said, "but you are
+wrong in one essential. By a curious oversight I was never unfrocked,
+and I am still legally a priest of the Church of England."
+
+"Heavens!" gasped Beale, "then this marriage is legal!"
+
+"It's as legal as it can possibly be," said Parson Homo complacently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BEALE SEES WHITE
+
+
+"In a sense," said Lawyer Kitson, "it is a tragedy. In a sense it is a
+comedy. The most fatal comedy of errors that could be imagined."
+
+Stanford Beale sat on a low chair, his head in his hands, the picture of
+dejection.
+
+"I don't mind your kicks," he said, without looking up; "you can't say
+anything worse about me than I am saying about myself. Oh, I've been a
+fool, an arrogant mad fool."
+
+Kitson, his hands clasped behind his back under his tail coat, his
+gold-rimmed pince-nez perched on his nose, looked down at the young man.
+
+"I am not going to tell you that I was against the idea from the
+beginning, because that is unnecessary. I ought to have put my foot down
+and stopped it. I heard you were pretty clever with a gun, Stanford. Why
+didn't you sail in and rescue the girl as soon as you found where she
+was?"
+
+"I don't think there would have been a ghost of a chance," said the
+other, looking up. "I am not finding excuses, but I am telling you what
+I know. There were four or five men in the house and they were all
+pretty tough citizens--I doubt if I would have made it that way."
+
+"You think he would have married her?"
+
+"He admitted as much," said Stanford Beale, "the parson was already
+there when I butted in."
+
+"What steps are you taking to deal with this man van Heerden?"
+
+Beale laughed helplessly.
+
+"I cannot take any until Miss Cresswell recovers."
+
+"Mrs. Beale," murmured Kitson, and the other went red.
+
+"I guess we'll call her Miss Cresswell, if you don't mind," he said
+sharply, "see here, Mr. Kitson, you needn't make things worse than they
+are. I can do nothing until she recovers and can give us a statement as
+to what happened. McNorton will execute the warrant just as soon as we
+can formulate a charge. In fact, he is waiting downstairs in the hope of
+seeing----" he paused, "Miss Cresswell. What does the doctor say?"
+
+"She's sleeping now."
+
+"It's maddening, maddening," groaned Beale, "and yet if it weren't so
+horrible I could laugh. Yesterday I was waiting for a 'hobo' to come out
+of delirium tremens. To-day I am waiting for Miss Cresswell to recover
+from some devilish drug. I've made a failure of it, Mr. Kitson."
+
+"I'm afraid you have," said the other dryly; "what do you intend doing?"
+
+"But does it occur to you," asked Kitson slowly, "that this lady is not
+aware that she has married you and that we've got to break the news to
+her? That's the part I don't like."
+
+"And you can bet it doesn't fill me with rollicking high spirits,"
+snapped Beale; "it's a most awful situation."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked the other again.
+
+"What are you going to do?" replied the exasperated Beale, "after all,
+you're her lawyer."
+
+"And you're her husband," said Kitson grimly, "which reminds me." He
+walked to his desk and took up a slip of paper. "I drew this out against
+your coming. This is a certified cheque for £400,000, that is nearly two
+million dollars, which I am authorized to hand to Oliva's husband on the
+day of her wedding."
+
+Beale took it from the other's fingers, read it carefully and tore it
+into little pieces, after which conversation flagged. After awhile Beale
+asked:
+
+"What do I have to do to get a divorce?"
+
+"Well," said the lawyer, "by the English law if you leave your wife and
+go away, and refuse to return to her she can apply to a judge of the
+High Court, who will order you to return within fourteen days."
+
+"I'd come back in fourteen seconds if she wanted me," said Beale
+fervently.
+
+"You're hopeless," said Kitson, "you asked how you could get a divorce.
+I presume you want one."
+
+"Of course I do. I want to undo the whole of this horrible tangle. It's
+absurd and undignified. Can nothing be done without Miss Cresswell
+knowing?"
+
+"Nothing can be done without your wife's knowledge," said Kitson.
+
+He seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in reminding the unhappy young man
+of his misfortune.
+
+"I am not blaming you," he said more soberly, "I blame myself. When I
+took this trust from poor John Millinborn I never realized all that it
+meant or all the responsibility it entailed. How could I imagine that
+the detective I employed to protect the girl from fortune hunters would
+marry her? I am not complaining," he said hastily, seeing the wrath rise
+in Beale's face, "it is very unfortunate, and you are as much the victim
+of circumstances as I. But unhappily we have not been the real victims."
+
+"I suppose," said Beale, looking up at the ceiling, "if I were one of
+those grand little mediæval knights or one of those gallant gentlemen
+one reads about I should blow my brains out."
+
+"That would be a solution," said Mr. Kitson, "but we should still have
+to explain to your wife that she was a widow."
+
+"Then what am I to do?"
+
+"Have a cigar," said Kitson.
+
+He took two from his vest pocket and handed one to his companion, and
+his shrewd old eyes twinkled.
+
+"It's years and years since I read a romantic story," he said, "and I
+haven't followed the trend of modern literature very closely, but I
+think that your job is to sail in and make the lady love you."
+
+Beale jumped to his feet.
+
+"Do you mean that? Pshaw! It's absurd! It's ridiculous! She would never
+love me."
+
+"I don't see why anybody should, least of all your wife," said Kitson,
+"but it would certainly simplify matters."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Marry her all over again," said Kitson, sending a big ring of smoke
+into the air, "there's no law against it. You can marry as many times as
+you like, providing you marry the same woman."
+
+"But, suppose--suppose she loves somebody else?" asked Beale hoarsely.
+
+"Why then it will be tough on you," said Kitson, "but tougher on her.
+Your business is to see that she doesn't love somebody else."
+
+"But how?"
+
+A look of infinite weariness passed across Kitson's face. He removed his
+glasses and put them carefully into their case.
+
+"Really, as a detective," he said, "you may be a prize exhibit, but as
+an ordinary human being you wouldn't even get a consolation prize. You
+have got me into a mess and you have got to get me out. John Millinborn
+was concerned only with one thing--the happiness of his niece. If you
+can make your wife, Mrs. Stanford Beale" (Beale groaned), "if you can
+make your good lady happy," said the remorseless lawyer, "my trust is
+fulfilled. I believe you are a white man, Beale," he said with a change
+in his tone, "and that her money means nothing to you. I may not be able
+to give a young man advice as to the best method of courting his wife,
+but I know something about human nature, and if you are not straight, I
+have made one of my biggest mistakes. My advice to you is to leave her
+alone for a day or two until she's quite recovered. You have plenty to
+occupy your mind. Go out and fix van Heerden, but not for his treatment
+of the girl--she mustn't figure in a case of that kind, for all the
+facts will come out. You think you have another charge against him;
+well, prove it. That man killed John Millinborn and I believe you can
+put him behind bars. As the guardian angel of Oliva Cresswell you have
+shown certain lamentable deficiencies"--the smile in his eyes was
+infectious, and Stanford Beale smiled in sympathy. "In that capacity I
+have no further use for your services and you are fired, but you can
+consider yourself re-engaged on the spot to settle with van Heerden. I
+will pay all the expenses of the chase--but get him."
+
+He put out his hand and Stanford gripped it.
+
+"You're a great man, sir," he breathed.
+
+The old man chuckled.
+
+"And you may even be a great detective," he said. "In five minutes your
+Mr. Lassimus White will be here. You suggested I should send for
+him--who is he, by the way?"
+
+"The managing director of Punsonby's. A friend of van Heerden's and a
+shareholder in his Great Adventure."
+
+"But he knows nothing?"
+
+There was a tap at the door and a page-boy came into the sitting-room
+with a card.
+
+"Show the gentleman up," said Kitson; "it is our friend," he explained.
+
+"And he may know a great deal," said Beale.
+
+Mr. White stalked into the room dangling his glasses with the one hand
+and holding his shiny silk hat with the other. He invariably carried his
+hat as though it were a rifle he were shouldering.
+
+He bowed ceremoniously and closed the door behind him.
+
+"Mr.--ah--Kitson?" he said, and advanced a big hand. "I received your
+note and am, as you will observe, punctual. I may say that my favourite
+motto is 'Punctuality is the politeness of princes."
+
+"You know Mr. Beale?"
+
+Mr. White bowed stiffly.
+
+"I have--ah--met Mr. Beale."
+
+"In my unregenerate days," said Beale cheerfully, "but I am quite sober
+now."
+
+"I am delighted to learn this," said Mr. White. "I am extremely glad to
+learn this."
+
+"Mr. Kitson asked you to come, Mr. White, but really it is I who want to
+see you," said Beale. "To be perfectly frank, I learnt that you were in
+some slight difficulty."
+
+"Difficulty?" Mr. White bristled. "Me, sir, in difficulty? The head of
+the firm of Punsonby's, whose credit stands, sir, as a model of sound
+industrial finance? Oh no, sir."
+
+Beale was taken aback. He had depended upon information which came from
+unimpeachable sources to secure the co-operation of this pompous
+windbag.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said. "I understood that you had called a meeting of
+creditors and had offered to sell certain shares in a syndicate which I
+had hoped to take off your hands."
+
+Mr. White inclined his head graciously.
+
+"It is true, sir," he said, "that I asked a few--ah--wholesale firms to
+meet me and to talk over things. It is also true that I--ah--had shares
+which had ceased to interest me, but those shares are sold."
+
+"Sold! Has van Heerden bought them in?" asked Beale eagerly; and Mr.
+White nodded.
+
+"Doctor van Heerden, a remarkable man, a truly remarkable man." He shook
+his head as if he could not bring himself and never would bring himself
+to understand how remarkable a man the doctor was. "Doctor van Heerden
+has repurchased my shares and they have made me a very handsome profit."
+
+"When was this?" asked Beale.
+
+"I really cannot allow myself to be cross-examined, young man," he said
+severely, "by your accent I perceive that you are of trans-Atlantic
+origin, but I cannot allow you to hustle me--hustle I believe is the
+word. The firm of Punsonby's----"
+
+"Forget 'em," said Beale tersely. "Punsonby's has been on the verge of
+collapse for eight years. Let's get square, Mr. White. Punsonby's is a
+one man company and you're that man. Its balance sheets are faked, its
+reserves are non-existent. Its sinking fund is _spurlos versenkt_."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"I tell you I know Punsonby's--I've had the best accountants in London
+working out your position, and I know you live from hand to mouth and
+that the margin between your business and bankruptcy is as near as the
+margin between you and prison."
+
+Mr. White was very pale.
+
+"But that isn't my business and I dare say that the money van Heerden
+paid you this morning will stave off your creditors. Anyway, I'm not
+running a Pure Business Campaign. I'm running a campaign against your
+German friend van Heerden."
+
+"A German?" said the virtuous Mr. White in loud astonishment. "Surely
+not--a Holland gentleman----"
+
+"He's a German and you know it. You've been financing him in a scheme to
+ruin the greater part of Europe and the United States, to say nothing of
+Canada, South America, India and Australia."
+
+"I protest against such an inhuman charge," said Mr. White solemnly, and
+he rose. "I cannot stay here any longer----"
+
+"If you go I'll lay information against you," said Beale. "I'm in dead
+earnest, so you can go or stay. First of all, I want to know in what
+form you received the money?"
+
+"By cheque," replied White in a flurry.
+
+"On what bank?"
+
+"The London branch of the Swedland National Bank."
+
+"A secret branch of the Dresdner Bank," said Beale. "That's promising.
+Has Doctor Van Heerden ever paid you money before?"
+
+By now Mr. White was the most tractable of witnesses. All his old
+assurance had vanished, and his answers were almost apologetic in tone.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Beale, small sums."
+
+"On what bank?"
+
+"On my own bank."
+
+"Good again. Have you ever known that he had an account elsewhere--for
+example, you advanced him a very considerable sum of money; was your
+cheque cleared through the Swedland National Bank?"
+
+"No, sir--through my own bank."
+
+Beale fingered his chin.
+
+"Money this morning and he took his loss in good part--that can only
+mean one thing." He nodded. "Mr. White, you have supplied me with
+valuable information."
+
+"I trust I have said nothing which may--ah--incriminate one who has
+invariably treated me with the highest respect," Mr. White hastened to
+say.
+
+"Not more than he is incriminated," smiled Stanford. "One more question.
+You know that van Heerden is engaged in some sort of business--the
+business in which you invested your money. Where are his factories?"
+
+But here Mr. White protested he could offer no information. He recalled,
+not without a sinking of heart, a similar cross-examination on the
+previous day at the hands of McNorton. There were factories--van Heerden
+had hinted as much--but as to where they were located--well, confessed
+Mr. White, he hadn't the slightest idea.
+
+"That's rubbish," said Beale roughly, "you know. Where did you
+communicate with van Heerden? He wasn't always at his flat and you only
+came there twice."
+
+"I assure you----" began Mr. White, alarmed by the other's vehemence.
+
+"Assure nothing," thundered Beale, "your policies won't sell--where did
+you see him?"
+
+"On my honour----"
+
+"Let's keep jokes outside of the argument," said Beale truculently,
+"where did you see him?"
+
+"Believe me, I never saw him--if I had a message to send, my
+cashier--ah--Miss Glaum, an admirable young lady--carried it for me."
+
+"Hilda Glaum!"
+
+Beale struck his palm. Why had he not thought of Hilda Glaum before?
+
+"That's about all I want to ask you, Mr. White," he said mildly; "you're
+a lucky man."
+
+"Lucky, sir!" Mr. White recovered his hauteur as quickly as Beale's
+aggressiveness passed. "I fail to perceive my fortune. I fail to see,
+sir, where luck comes in."
+
+"You have your money back," said Beale significantly, "if you hadn't
+been pressed for money and had not pressed van Heerden you would have
+whistled for it."
+
+"Do you suggest," demanded White, in his best judicial manner, "do you
+suggest in the presence of a witness with a due appreciation of the
+actionable character of your words that Doctor van Heerden is a common
+swindler?"
+
+"Not common," replied Beale, "thank goodness!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+HILDA GLAUM LEADS THE WAY
+
+
+Beale had a long consultation with McNorton at Scotland Yard, and on his
+return to the hotel, had his dinner sent up to Kitson's private room and
+dined amidst a litter of open newspapers. They were representative
+journals of the past week, and he scanned their columns carefully. Now
+and again he would cut out a paragraph and in one case half a column.
+
+Kitson, who was dining with a friend in the restaurant of the hotel,
+came up toward nine o'clock and stood looking with amusement at the
+detective's silent labours.
+
+"You're making a deplorable litter in my room," he said, "but I suppose
+there is something very mysterious and terrible behind it all. Do you
+mind my reading your cuttings?"
+
+"Go ahead," said Beale, without raising his eyes from his newspaper.
+
+Kitson took up a slip and read aloud:
+
+
+     "The reserves of the Land Bank of the Ukraine have been increased
+     by ten million roubles. This increase has very considerably eased
+     the situation in Southern Ukraine and in Galicia, where there has
+     been considerable unrest amongst the peasants due to the high cost
+     of textiles."
+
+
+"That is fascinating news," said Kitson sardonically. "Are you running a
+scrap-book on high finance?"
+
+"No," said the other shortly, "the Land Bank is a Loan Bank. It finances
+peasant proprietors."
+
+"You a shareholder?" asked Mr. Kitson wonderingly.
+
+"No."
+
+Kitson picked up another cutting. It was a telegraphic dispatch dated
+from Berlin:
+
+
+     "As evidence of the healthy industrial tone which prevails in
+     Germany and the rapidity with which the Government is recovering
+     from the effects of the war, I may instance the fact that an order
+     has been placed with the Leipzieger Spoorwagen Gesselshaft for
+     60,000 box cars. The order has been placed by the L.S.G. with
+     thirty firms, and the first delivery is due in six weeks."
+
+
+"That's exciting," said Kitson, "but why cut it out?"
+
+The next cutting was also dated "Berlin" and announced the revival of
+the "War Purchase Council" of the old belligerent days as "a temporary
+measure."
+
+
+     "It is not intended," said the dispatch, "to invest the committee
+     with all its old functions, and the step has been taken in view of
+     the bad potato crop to organize distribution."
+
+
+"What's the joke about that?" asked Kitson, now puzzled.
+
+"The joke is that there is no potato shortage--there never was such a
+good harvest," said Beale. "I keep tag of these things and I know. The
+_Western Mail_ had an article from its Berlin correspondent last week
+saying that potatoes were so plentiful that they were a drug on the
+market."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+"Did you read about the Zeppelin sheds?" asked Beale. "You will find it
+amongst the others. All the old Zepp. hangars throughout Germany are to
+be put in a state of repair and turned into skating-rinks for the
+physical development of young Germany. Wonderful concrete floors are to
+be laid down, all the dilapidations are to be made good, and the bands
+will play daily, wet or fine."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked the bewildered lawyer.
+
+"That The Day--the real Day is near at hand," said Beale soberly.
+
+"War?"
+
+"Against the world, but without the flash of a bayonet or the boom of a
+cannon. A war fought by men sitting in their little offices and pulling
+the strings that will choke you and me, Mr. Kitson. To-night I am going
+after van Heerden. I may catch him and yet fail to arrest his evil
+work--that's a funny word, 'evil,' for everyday people to use, but
+there's no other like it. To-morrow, whether I catch him or not, I will
+tell you the story of the plot I accidentally discovered. The British
+Government thinks that I have got on the track of a big thing--so does
+Washington, and I'm having all the help I want."
+
+"It's a queer world," said Kitson.
+
+"It may be queerer," responded Beale, then boldly: "How is my wife?"
+
+"Your--well, I like your nerve!" gasped Kitson.
+
+"I thought you preferred it that way--how is Miss Cresswell?"
+
+"The nurse says she is doing famously. She is sleeping now; but she woke
+up for food and is nearly normal. She did not ask for you," he added
+pointedly.
+
+Beale flushed and laughed.
+
+"My last attempt to be merry," he said. "I suppose that to-morrow she
+will be well."
+
+"But not receiving visitors," Kitson was careful to warn him. "You will
+keep your mind off Oliva and keep your eye fixed on van Heerden if you
+are wise. No man can serve two masters."
+
+Stanford Beale looked at his watch.
+
+"It is the hour," he said oracularly, and got up.
+
+"I'll leave this untidiness for your man to clear," said Kitson. "Where
+do you go now?"
+
+"To see Hilda Glaum--if the fates are kind," said Beale. "I'm going to
+put up a bluff, believing that in her panic she will lead me into the
+lion's den with the idea of van Heerden making one mouthful of me. I've
+got to take that risk. If she is what I think she is, she'll lay a trap
+for me--I'll fall for it, but I'm going to get next to van Heerden
+to-night."
+
+Kitson accompanied him to the door of the hotel.
+
+"Take no unnecessary risks," he said at parting, "don't forget that
+you're a married man."
+
+"That's one of the things I want to forget if you'll let me," said the
+exasperated young man.
+
+Outside the hotel he hailed a passing taxi and was soon speeding through
+Piccadilly westward. He turned by Hyde Park Corner, skirted the grounds
+of Buckingham Palace and plunged into the maze of Pimlico. He pulled up
+before a dreary-looking house in a blank and dreary street, and telling
+the cabman to wait, mounted the steps and rang the bell.
+
+A diminutive maid opened the door.
+
+"Is Miss Glaum in?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, sir. Will you step into the drawing-room. All the other boarders
+are out. What name shall I say?"
+
+"Tell her a gentleman from Krooman Mansions," he answered
+diplomatically.
+
+He walked into the tawdry parlour and put down his hat and stick, and
+waited. Presently the door opened and the girl came in. She stopped
+open-mouthed with surprise at the sight of him, and her surprise
+deepened to suspicion.
+
+"I thought----" she began, and checked herself.
+
+"You thought I was Doctor van Heerden? Well, I am not."
+
+"You're the man I saw at Heyler's," she said, glowering at him.
+
+"Yes, my name is Beale."
+
+"Oh, I've heard about you. You'll get nothing by prying here," she
+cried.
+
+"I shall get a great deal by prying here, I think," he said calmly. "Sit
+down, Miss Hilda Glaum, and let us understand one another. You are a
+friend of Doctor van Heerden's?"
+
+"I shall answer no questions," she snapped.
+
+"Perhaps you will answer this question," he said, "why did Doctor van
+Heerden secure an appointment for you at Punsonby's, and why, when you
+were there, did you steal three registered envelopes which you conveyed
+to the doctor?"
+
+Her face went red and white.
+
+"That's a lie!" she gasped.
+
+"You might tell a judge and jury that and then they wouldn't believe
+you," he smiled. "Come, Miss Glaum, let us be absolutely frank with one
+another. I am telling you that I don't intend bringing your action to
+the notice of the police, and you can give me a little information which
+will be very useful to me."
+
+"It's a lie," she repeated, visibly agitated, "I did not steal anything.
+If Miss Cresswell says so----"
+
+"Miss Cresswell is quite ignorant of your treachery," said the other
+quietly; "but as you are determined to deny that much, perhaps you will
+tell me this, what business brings you to Doctor van Heerden's flat in
+the small hours of the morning?"
+
+"Do you insinuate----?"
+
+"I insinuate nothing. And least of all do I insinuate that you have any
+love affair with the doctor, who does not strike me as that kind of
+person."
+
+Her eyes narrowed and for a moment it seemed that her natural vanity
+would overcome her discretion.
+
+"Who says I go to Doctor van Heerden's?"
+
+"I say so, because I have seen you. Surely you don't forget that I live
+opposite the amiable doctor?"
+
+"I am not going to discuss my business or his," she said, "and I don't
+care what you threaten me with or what you do."
+
+"I will do something more than threaten you," he said ominously, "you
+will not fool me, Miss Glaum, and the sooner you realize the fact the
+better. I am going all the way with you if you give me any trouble, and
+if you don't answer my questions. I might tell you that unless this
+interview is a very satisfactory one to me I shall not only arrest
+Doctor van Heerden to-night but I shall take you as an accomplice."
+
+"You can't, you can't." She almost screamed the words.
+
+All the sullen restraint fell away from her and she was electric in the
+violence of her protest.
+
+"Arrest him! That wonderful man! Arrest me? You dare not! You dare not!"
+
+"I shall dare do lots of things unless you tell me what I want to know."
+
+"What do you want to know?" she demanded defiantly.
+
+"I want to know the most likely address at which your friend the doctor
+can be found--the fact is, Miss Glaum, the game is up--we know all about
+the Green Rust."
+
+She stepped back, her hand raised to her mouth.
+
+"The--the Green Rust!" she gasped. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I have every reason to believe that Doctor van Heerden is
+engaged in a conspiracy against this State. He has disappeared, but is
+still in London. I want to take him quietly--without fuss."
+
+Her eyes were fixed on his. He saw doubt, rage, a hint of fear and
+finally a steady light of resolution shining. When she spoke her voice
+was calm.
+
+"Very good. I will take you to the place," she said.
+
+She went out of the room and came back five minutes later with her hat
+and coat on.
+
+"It's a long way," she began.
+
+"I have a taxi at the door."
+
+"We cannot go all the way by taxi. Tell the man to drive to Baker
+Street," she said.
+
+She spoke no word during the journey, nor was Beale inclined for
+conversation. At Baker Street Station they stopped and the cab was
+dismissed. Together they walked in silence, turning from the main road,
+passing the Central Station and plunging into a labyrinth of streets
+which was foreign territory to the American.
+
+It seemed that he had passed in one step from one of the best-class
+quarters of the town to one of the worst. One minute he was passing
+through a sedate square, lined with the houses of the well-to-do,
+another minute he was in a slum.
+
+"The place is at the end of this street," she said.
+
+They came to what seemed to be a stable-yard. There was a blank wall
+with one door and a pair of gates. The girl took a key from her bag,
+opened the small door and stepped in, and Beale followed.
+
+They were in a yard littered with casks. On two sides of the yard ran
+low-roofed buildings which had apparently been used as stables. She
+locked the door behind her, walked across the yard to the corner and
+opened another door.
+
+"There are fourteen steps down," she said, "have you a light of any
+kind?"
+
+He took his electric torch from his pocket.
+
+"Give it to me," she said, "I will lead the way."
+
+"What is this place?" he asked, after she had locked the door.
+
+"It used to be a wine merchant's," she said shortly, "we have the
+cellars."
+
+"We?" he repeated.
+
+She made no reply. At the bottom of the steps was a short passage and
+another door which was opened, and apparently the same key fitted them
+all, or else as Beale suspected she carried a pass key.
+
+They walked through, and again she closed the door behind them.
+
+"Another?" he said, as her light flashed upon a steel door a dozen paces
+ahead.
+
+"It is the last one," she said, and went on.
+
+Suddenly the light was extinguished.
+
+"Your lamp's gone wrong," he heard her say, "but I can find the lock."
+
+He heard a click, but did not see the door open and did not realize
+what had happened until he heard a click again. The light was suddenly
+flashed on him, level with his eyes.
+
+"You can't see me," said a mocking voice, "I'm looking at you through
+the little spy-hole. Did you see the spy-hole, clever Mr. Beale? And I
+am on the other side of the door." He heard her laugh. "Are you going to
+arrest the doctor to-night?" she mocked. "Are you going to discover the
+secret of the Green Rust--ah! That is what you want, isn't it?"
+
+"My dear little friend," said Beale smoothly, "you will be very sensible
+and open that door. You don't suppose that I came here alone. I was
+shadowed all the way."
+
+"You lie," she said coolly, "why did I dismiss the cab and make you
+walk? Oh, clever Mr. Beale!"
+
+He chuckled, though he was in no chuckling mood.
+
+"What a sense of humour!" he said admiringly, "now just listen to me!"
+
+He made one stride to the door, his revolver had flicked out of his
+hip-pocket, when he heard the snap of a shutter, and the barrel that he
+thrust between the bars met steel. Then came the grind of bolts and he
+pocketed his gun.
+
+"So that's that," he said.
+
+Then he walked back to the other door, struck a match and examined it.
+It was sheathed with iron. He tapped the walls with his stick, but found
+nothing to encourage him. The floor was solidly flagged, the low roof of
+the passage was vaulted and cased with stone.
+
+He stopped in his search suddenly and listened. Above his head he heard
+a light patter of feet, and smiled. It was his boast that he never
+forgot a voice or a footfall.
+
+"That's my little friend on her way back, running like the deuce, to
+tell the doctor," he said. "I have something under an hour before the
+shooting starts!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden did not hurry his departure from his Staines house. He
+spent the morning following Oliva's marriage in town, transacting
+certain important business and making no attempt to conceal his comings
+and goings, though he knew that he was shadowed. Yet he was well aware
+that every hour that passed brought danger nearer. He judged (and
+rightly) that his peril was not to be found in the consequences to his
+detention of Oliva Cress well.
+
+"I may have a week's grace," he said to Milsom, "and in the space of a
+week I can do all that I want."
+
+He spent the evening superintending the dismantling of apparatus in the
+shed, and it was past ten o'clock on Tuesday before he finished.
+
+It was not until he was seated by Milsom's side in the big limousine and
+the car was running smoothly through Kingston that he made any further
+reference to the previous afternoon.
+
+"Is Beale content?" he asked.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Milsom, dozing in the corner of the car, awoke with a start.
+
+"Is Beale content with his prize--and his predicament?" asked van
+Heerden.
+
+"Well, I guess he should be. That little job brings him a million. He
+shouldn't worry about anything further."
+
+But van Heerden shook his head.
+
+"I don't think you have things quite right, Milsom," he said. "Beale is
+a better man than I thought, and knows my mind a little too well. He was
+astounded when Homo claimed to be a priest--I never saw a man more
+stunned in my life. He intended the marriage as a bluff to keep me away
+from the girl. He analysed the situation exactly, for he knew I was
+after her money, and that she as a woman had no attraction for me. He
+believed--and there he was justified--that if I could not marry her I
+had no interest in detaining her, and engaged Homo to follow him around
+with a special licence. He timed everything too well for my comfort."
+
+Milsom shifted round and peered anxiously at his companion.
+
+"How do you mean?" he asked. "It was only by a fluke that he made it in
+time."
+
+"That isn't what I mean. It is the fact that he knew that every second
+was vital, that he guessed I was keen on a quick marriage and that to
+forestall me he carried his (as he thought) pseudo-clergyman with him so
+that he need not lose a minute: these are the disturbing factors."
+
+"I don't see it," said Milsom, "the fellow's a crook, all these Yankee
+detectives are grafters. He saw a chance of a big rake off and took it,
+fifty-fifty of a million fortune is fine commission!"
+
+"You're wrong. I'd like to think as you do. Man! Can't you see that his
+every action proves that he knows all about the Green Rust?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Milsom sat up.
+
+"How--what makes you say that?"
+
+"It's clear enough. He has already some idea of the scheme. He has been
+pumping old Heyler; he even secured a sample of the stuff--it was a
+faulty cultivation, but it might have been enough for him. He surmised
+that I had a special use for old Millinborn's money and why I was in a
+hurry to get it."
+
+The silence which followed lasted several minutes.
+
+"Does anybody except Beale know? If you settled him...?"
+
+"We should have to finish him to-night" said van Heerden, "that is what
+I have been thinking about all day."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"Well, why not?" asked Milsom, "it is all one to me. The stake is worth
+a little extra risk."
+
+"It must be done before he finds the Paddington place; that is the
+danger which haunts me." Van Heerden was uneasy, and he had lost the
+note of calm assurance which ordinarily characterized his speech. "There
+is sufficient evidence there to spoil everything."
+
+"There is that," breathed Milsom, "it was madness to go on. You have all
+the stuff you want, you could have closed down the factory a week ago."
+
+"I must have a margin of safety--besides, how could I do anything else?
+I was nearly broke and any sign of closing down would have brought my
+hungry workers to Krooman Mansions."
+
+"That's true," agreed the other, "I've had to stall 'em off, but I
+didn't know that it was because you were broke. It seemed to me just a
+natural reluctance to part with good money."
+
+Further conversation was arrested by the sudden stoppage of the car. Van
+Heerden peered through the window ahead and caught a glimpse of a red
+lamp.
+
+"It is all right," he said, "this must be Putney Common, and I told
+Gregory to meet me with any news."
+
+A man came into the rays of the head-lamp and passed to the door.
+
+"Well," asked the doctor, "is there any trouble?"
+
+"I saw the green lamp on the bonnet," said Gregory (Milsom no longer
+wondered how the man had recognized the car from the score of others
+which pass over the common), "there is no news of importance."
+
+"Where is Beale?"
+
+"At the old man's hotel. He has been there all day."
+
+"Has he made any further visits to the police?"
+
+"He was at Scotland Yard this afternoon."
+
+"And the young lady?"
+
+"One of the waiters at the hotel, a friend of mine, told me that she is
+much better. She has had two doctors."
+
+"And still lives?" said the cynical Milsom. "That makes four doctors she
+has seen in two days."
+
+Van Heerden leant out of the car window and lowered his voice.
+
+"The Fräulein Glaum, you saw her?"
+
+"Yes, I told her that she must not come to your laboratory again until
+you sent for her. She asked when you leave."
+
+"That she must not know, Gregory--please remember."
+
+He withdrew his head, tapped at the window and the car moved on.
+
+"There's another problem for you, van Heerden," said Milsom with a
+chuckle.
+
+"What?" demanded the other sharply.
+
+"Hilda Glaum. I've only seen the girl twice or so, but she adores you.
+What are you going to do with her?"
+
+Van Heerden lit a cigarette, and in the play of the flame Milsom saw him
+smiling.
+
+"She comes on after me," he said, "by which I mean that I have a place
+for her in my country, but not----"
+
+"Not the sort of place she expects," finished Milsom bluntly. "You may
+have trouble there."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"That's foolish," said Milsom, "the convict establishments of England
+are filled with men who said 'Bah' when they were warned against jealous
+women. If," he went on, "if you could eliminate jealousy from the human
+outfit, you'd have half the prison warders of England unemployed."
+
+"Hilda is a good girl," said the other complacently, "she is also a good
+German girl, and in Germany women know their place in the system. She
+will be satisfied with what I give her."
+
+"There aren't any women like that," said Milsom with decision, and the
+subject dropped.
+
+The car stopped near the Marble Arch to put down Milsom, and van Heerden
+continued his journey alone, reaching his apartments a little before
+midnight. As he stepped out of the car a man strolled across the street.
+It was Beale's watcher. Van Heerden looked round with a smile, realizing
+the significance of this nonchalant figure, and passed through the lobby
+and up the stairs.
+
+He had left his lights full on for the benefit of watchers, and the
+hall-lamp glowed convincingly through the fanlight. Beale's flat was in
+darkness, and a slip of paper fastened to the door gave his address.
+
+The doctor let himself into his own rooms, closed the door, switched
+out the light and stepped into his bureau.
+
+"Hello," he said angrily, "what are you doing here?--I told you not to
+come."
+
+The girl who was sitting at the table and who now rose to meet him was
+breathless, and he read trouble in her face. He could have read pride
+there, too, that she had so well served the man whom she idolized as a
+god.
+
+"I've got him, I've got him, Julius!"
+
+"Got him! Got whom?" he asked, with a frown.
+
+"Beale!" she said eagerly, "the great Beale!"
+
+She gurgled with hysterical laughter.
+
+"He came to me, he was going to arrest me to-night, but I got him."
+
+"Sit down," he said firmly, "and try to be coherent, Hilda. Who came to
+you?"
+
+"Beale. He came to my boarding-house and wanted to know where you had
+taken Oliva Cresswell. Have you taken her?" she asked earnestly.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+"He came to me full of arrogance and threats. He was going to have me
+arrested, Julius, because of those letters which I gave you. But I
+didn't worry about myself, Julius. It was all for you that I thought.
+The thought that you, my dear, great man, should be put in one of these
+horrible English prisons--oh, Julius!"
+
+She rose, her eyes filled with tears, but he stood over her, laid his
+hands on her shoulders and pressed her back.
+
+"Now, now. You must tell me everything. This is very serious. What
+happened then?"
+
+"He wanted me to take him to one of the places."
+
+"One of what places?" he asked quickly.
+
+"I don't know. He only said that he knew that you had other houses--I
+don't even know that he said that, but that was the impression that he
+gave me, that he knew you were to be found somewhere."
+
+"Go on," said the doctor.
+
+"And so I thought and I thought," said the girl, her hands clasped in
+front of her, her eyes looking up into his, "and I prayed God would
+give me some idea to help you. And then the scheme came to me, Julius. I
+said I would lead him to you."
+
+"You said you would lead him to me?" he said steadily, "and where did
+you lead him?"
+
+"To the factory in Paddington," she said.
+
+"There!" he stared at her.
+
+"Wait, wait, wait!" she said, "oh, please don't blame me! I took him
+into the passage with the doors. I borrowed his light, and after we had
+passed and locked the second door I slipped through the third and
+slammed it in his face."
+
+"Then----"
+
+"He is there! Caught! Oh, Julius, did I do well? Please don't be angry
+with me! I was so afraid for you!"
+
+"How long have you been here?" he asked.
+
+"Not ten minutes, perhaps five minutes, I don't know. I have no
+knowledge of time. I came straight back to see you."
+
+He stood by the table, gnawing his finger, his head bowed in
+concentrated thought.
+
+"There, of all places!" he muttered; "there, of all places!"
+
+"Oh, Julius, I did my best," she said tearfully.
+
+He looked down at her with a little sneer.
+
+"Of course you did your best. You're a woman and you haven't brains."
+
+"I thought----"
+
+"You thought!" he sneered. "Who told you you could think? You fool!
+Don't you know it was a bluff, that he could no more arrest me than I
+could arrest him? Don't you realize--did he know you were in the habit
+of coming here?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I thought so," said van Heerden with a bitter laugh. "He knows you are
+in love with me and he played upon your fears. You poor little fool!
+Don't cry or I shall do something unpleasant. There, there. Help
+yourself to some wine, you'll find it in the tantalus."
+
+He strode up and down the room.
+
+"There's nothing to be done but to settle accounts with Mr. Beale," he
+said grimly. "Do you think he was watched?"
+
+"Oh no, no, Julius"--she checked her sobs--"I was so careful."
+
+She gave him a description of the journey and the precautions she had
+taken.
+
+"Well, perhaps you're not such a fool after all."
+
+He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a long-barrelled Browning
+pistol, withdrew the magazine from the butt, examined and replaced it,
+and slipped back the cover.
+
+"Yes, I think I must settle accounts with this gentleman, but I don't
+want to use this," he added thoughtfully, as he pushed up the
+safety-catch and dropped the weapon in his pocket; "we might be able to
+gas him. Anyway, you can do no more good or harm," he said cynically.
+
+She was speechless, her hands, clasped tightly at her breast, covered a
+damp ball of handkerchief, and her tear-stained face was upturned to
+his.
+
+"Now, dry your face." He stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
+"Perhaps what you have done is the best after all. Who knows? Anyway,"
+he said, speaking his thoughts aloud, "Beale knows about the Green Rust
+and it can't be very long before I have to go to earth, but only for a
+little time, my Hilda." He smiled, showing his white teeth, but it was
+not a pleasant smile, "only for a little time, and then," he threw up
+his arms, "we shall be rich beyond the dreams of Frankfurt."
+
+"You will succeed, I know you will succeed, Julius," she breathed, "if I
+could only help you! If you would only tell me what you are doing! What
+is the Green Rust? Is it some wonderful new explosive?"
+
+"Dry your face and go home," he said shortly, "you will find a detective
+outside the door watching you, but I do not think he will follow you."
+
+He dismissed the girl and followed her after an interval of time,
+striding boldly past the shadow and gaining the cab-stand in Shaftesbury
+Avenue without, so far as he could see, being followed. But he dismissed
+the cab in the neighbourhood of Baker Street and continued his journey
+on foot. He opened the little door leading into the yard but did not
+follow the same direction as the girl had led Stanford Beale. It was
+through another door that he entered the vault, which at one time had
+been the innocent repository of bubbling life and was now the factory
+where men worked diligently for the destruction of their fellows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GREEN RUST FACTORY
+
+
+Stanford Beale spent a thoughtful three minutes in the darkness of the
+cellar passage to which Hilda Glaum had led him and then he began a
+careful search of his pockets. He carried a little silver cigar-lighter,
+which had fortunately been charged with petrol that afternoon, and this
+afforded him a beam of adequate means to take note of his surroundings.
+
+The space between the two locked doors was ten feet, the width of the
+passage three, the height about seven feet. The roof, as he had already
+noted, was vaulted. Now he saw that along the centre ran a strip of
+beading. There had evidently been an electric light installation here,
+probably before the new owners took possession, for at intervals was a
+socket for an electric bulb. The new occupants had covered these and the
+rest of the wall with whitewash, and yet the beading and the electric
+fittings looked comparatively new. One wall, that on his left as he had
+come in, revealed nothing under his close inspection, but on the right
+wall, midway between the two doors, there had been a notice painted in
+white letters on a black background, and this showed faintly through the
+thick coating of distemper which had been applied. He damped a
+handkerchief with his tongue and rubbed away some of the whitewash
+where the letters were least legible and read:
+
+
+                                AID
+                                LTER.
+                                ------
+                                ULANCE &
+                                T AID.
+
+
+This was evidently half an inscription which had been cut off exactly in
+the middle. To the left there was no sign of lettering. He puzzled the
+letters for a few moments before he came to an understanding.
+
+"Air-raid shelter. Ambulance and first aid!" he read.
+
+So that explained the new electric fittings. It was one of those
+underground cellars which had been ferreted out by the Municipality or
+the Government for the shelter of the people in the neighbourhood during
+air-raids in the Great War. Evidently there was extensive accommodation
+here, since this was also an ambulance post. Faintly discernible beneath
+the letters was a painted white hand which pointed downward. What had
+happened to the other half of the inscription? Obviously it had been
+painted on the door leading into the first-aid room and as obviously
+that door had been removed and had been bricked up. In the light of this
+discovery he made a more careful inspection of the wall to the left. For
+the space of four feet the brickwork was new. He tapped it. It sounded
+hollow. Pressing his back against the opposite wall to give him leverage
+he put his foot against the new brickwork and pushed.
+
+He knew that the class of workmanship which was put into this kind of
+job was not of the best, that only one layer of brick was applied, and
+it was a mechanical fact that pressure applied to the centre of new work
+would produce a collapse.
+
+At the first push he felt the wall sag. Releasing his pressure it came
+back. This time he put both feet against the wall and bracing his
+shoulders he put every ounce of strength in his body into a mighty
+heave. The next second he was lying on his back. The greater part of the
+wall had collapsed. He was curious enough to examine the work he had
+demolished. It had evidently been done by amateurs, and the whitewash
+which had been thickly applied to the passage was explained.
+
+A current of fresh air came to meet him as he stepped gingerly across
+the debris. A flight of six stone steps led down to a small room
+containing a sink and a water supply, two camp beds which had evidently
+been part of the ambulance equipment and which the new owners had not
+thought necessary to remove, and a broken chair. The room was still
+littered with the paraphernalia of first-aid. He found odd ends of
+bandages, empty medicine bottles and a broken glass measure on the shelf
+above the sink.
+
+What interested him more was a door which he had not dared to hope he
+would find. It was bolted on his side, and when he had slid this back he
+discovered to his relief that it was not locked. He opened it carefully,
+first extinguishing his light. Beyond the door was darkness and he
+snapped back the light again. The room led to another, likewise empty.
+There were a number of shelves, a few old wine-bins, a score of empty
+bottles, but nothing else. At the far corner was yet another door, also
+bolted on the inside. Evidently van Heerden did not intend this part of
+the vault to be used.
+
+He looked at the lock and found it was broken. He must be approaching
+the main workroom in this new factory, and it was necessary to proceed
+with caution. He took out his revolver, spun the cylinder and thrust it
+under his waistcoat, the butt ready to his hand. The drawing of the
+bolts was a long business. He could not afford to risk detection at this
+hour, and could only move them by a fraction of an inch at a time.
+Presently his work was done and he pulled the door cautiously.
+
+Instantly there appeared between door and jamb a bright green line of
+light. He dare not move it any farther, for he heard now the shuffle of
+feet, and occasionally the sound of hollow voices, muffled and
+indistinguishable. In that light the opening of the door would be seen,
+perhaps by a dozen pair of eyes. For all he knew every man in that room
+might be facing his way. He had expected to hear the noise of machinery,
+but beyond the strangled voices, occasionally the click of glass against
+glass and the shuff-shuff-shuff of slippered feet crossing the floor, he
+heard nothing.
+
+He pulled the door another quarter of an inch and glued his eye to the
+crack. At this angle he could only see one of the walls of the big vault
+and the end of a long vapour-lamp which stood in one of the cornices and
+which supplied the ghastly light. But presently he saw something which
+filled him with hope. Against the wall was a high shadow which even the
+overhead lamp did not wholly neutralize. It was an irregular shadow such
+as a stack of boxes might make, and it occurred to him that perhaps
+beyond his range of vision there was a barricade of empty cases which
+hid the door from the rest of the room.
+
+He spent nearly three-quarters of an hour taking a bearing based upon
+the problematical position of the lights, the height and density of the
+box screen and then boldly and rapidly opened the door, stepped through
+and closed it behind him. His calculations had been accurate. He found
+himself in a room, the extent of which he could only conjecture. What,
+however, interested him mostly was the accuracy of his calculation that
+the door was hidden. An "L"-shaped stack of crates was piled within two
+feet of the ceiling, and formed a little lobby to anybody entering the
+vault the way Beale had come. They were stacked neatly and methodically,
+and with the exception of two larger packing-cases which formed the
+"corner stone" the barrier was made of a large number of small boxes
+about ten inches square.
+
+There was a small step-ladder, evidently used by the person whose
+business it was to keep this stack in order. Beale lifted it
+noiselessly, planted it against the corner and mounted cautiously.
+
+He saw a large, broad chamber, its groined roof supported by six squat
+stone pillars. Light came not only from mercurial lamps affixed to the
+ceiling, but from others suspended above the three rows of benches
+which ran the length of the room.
+
+Mercurial lamps do not give a green light, as he knew, but a violet
+light, and the green effect was produced by shades of something which
+Beale thought was yellow silk, but which he afterwards discovered was
+tinted mica.
+
+At intervals along the benches sat white-clad figures, their faces
+hidden behind rubber masks, their hands covered with gloves. In front of
+each man was a small microscope under a glass shade, a pair of balances
+and a rack filled with shallow porcelain trays. Evidently the work on
+which they were engaged did not endanger their eyesight, for the
+eye-pieces in the masks were innocent of protective covering, a
+circumstance which added to the hideous animal-like appearance of the
+men. They all looked alike in their uniform garb, but one figure alone
+Beale recognized. There was no mistaking the stumpy form and the big
+head of the Herr Professor, whose appearance in Oliva Cresswell's room
+had so terrified that young lady.
+
+He had expected to see him, for he knew that this old German,
+poverty-stricken and ill-favoured, had been roped in by van Heerden, and
+Beale, who pitied the old man, had been engaged for a fortnight in
+trying to worm from the ex-professor of chemistry at the University of
+Heidelberg the location of van Heerden's secret laboratory. His efforts
+had been unsuccessful. There was a streak of loyalty in the old man,
+which had excited an irritable admiration in the detective but had
+produced nothing more.
+
+Beale's eyes followed the benches and took in every detail. Some of the
+men were evidently engaged in tests, and remained all the time with
+their eyes glued to their microscopes. Others were looking into their
+porcelain trays and stirring the contents with glass rods, now and again
+transferring something to a glass slide which was placed on the
+microscope and earnestly examined.
+
+Beale was conscious of a faint musty odour permeating the air, an
+indescribable earthy smell with a tang to it which made the delicate
+membrane of the nostrils smart and ache. He tied his handkerchief over
+his nose and mouth before he took another peep. Only part of the room
+was visible from his post of observation. What was going on immediately
+beneath the far side of the screen he could only conjecture. But he saw
+enough to convince him that this was the principal factory, from whence
+van Heerden was distilling the poison with which he planned humanity's
+death.
+
+Some of the workers were filling and sealing small test-tubes with the
+contents of dishes. These tubes were extraordinarily delicate of
+structure, and Beale saw at least three crumble and shiver in the hands
+of the fillers.
+
+Every bench held a hundred or so of these tubes and a covered gas-jet
+for heating the wax. The work went on methodically, with very little
+conversation between the masked figures (he saw that the masks covered
+the heads of the chemists so that not a vestige of hair showed), and
+only occasionally did one of them leave his seat and disappear through a
+door at the far end of the room, which apparently led to a canteen.
+
+Evidently the fumes against which they were protected were not virulent,
+for some of the men stripped their masks as soon as they left their
+benches.
+
+For half an hour he watched, and in the course of that time saw the
+process of filling the small boxes which formed his barrier and
+hiding-place with the sealed tubes. He observed the care with which the
+fragile tubes were placed in their beds of cotton wool, and had a
+glimpse of the lined interior of one of the boxes. He was on the point
+of lifting down a box to make a more thorough examination when he heard
+a quavering voice beneath him.
+
+"What you do here--eh?"
+
+Under the step-ladder was one of the workers who had slipped noiselessly
+round the corner of the pile and now stood, grotesque and menacing, his
+uncovered eyes glowering at the intruder, the black barrel of his
+Browning pistol covering the detective's heart.
+
+"Don't shoot, colonel," said Beale softly. "I'll come down."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH
+
+
+After all, it was for the best--van Heerden could almost see the hand of
+Providence in this deliverance of his enemy into his power. There must
+be a settlement with Beale, that play-acting drunkard, who had so
+deceived him at first.
+
+Dr. van Heerden could admire the ingenuity of his enemy and could kill
+him. He was a man whose mental poise permitted the paradox of detached
+attachments. At first he had regarded Stanford Beale as a smart police
+officer, the sort of man whom Pinkerton and Burns turn out by the score.
+Shrewd, assertive, indefatigable, such men piece together the scattered
+mosaics of humdrum crimes, and by their mechanical patience produce for
+the satisfaction of courts sufficient of the piece to reveal the design.
+They figure in divorce suits, in financial swindles and occasionally in
+more serious cases.
+
+Van Heerden knew instinctively their limitations and had too hastily
+placed Beale in a lower category than he deserved. Van Heerden came to
+his workroom by way of the buffet which he had established for the use
+of his employees. As he shut the steel door behind him he saw Milsom
+standing at the rough wooden sideboard which served as bar and table for
+the workers.
+
+"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Milsom, and then quickly, as he
+read the other's face: "Anything wrong?"
+
+"If the fact that the cleverest policeman in America or England is at
+present on the premises can be so described, then everything is wrong,"
+said van Heerden, and helped himself to a drink.
+
+"Here--in the laboratory?" demanded Milsom, fear in his eyes. "What do
+you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you," said the other, and gave the story as he had heard it
+from Hilda Glaum.
+
+"He's in the old passage, eh?" said Milsom, thoughtfully, "well there's
+no reason why he should get out--alive."
+
+"He won't," said the other.
+
+"Was he followed--you saw nobody outside?"
+
+"We have nothing to fear on that score. He's working on his own."
+
+Milsom grunted.
+
+"What are we going to do with him?"
+
+"Gas him," said van Heerden, "he is certain to have a gun."
+
+Milsom nodded.
+
+"Wait until the men have gone. I let them go at three--a few at a time,
+and it wants half an hour to that. He can wait. He's safe where he is.
+Why didn't Hilda tell me? I never even saw her."
+
+"She went straight up from the old passage--through the men's door--she
+didn't trust you probably."
+
+Milsom smiled wryly. Though he controlled these works and knew half the
+doctor's secrets, he suspected that the quantity of van Heerden's trust
+was not greatly in excess of his girl's.
+
+"We'll wait," he said again, "there's no hurry and, anyway, I want to
+see you about old man Heyler."
+
+"Von Heyler? I thought you were rid of him?" said van Heerden in
+surprise, "that is the old fool that Beale has been after. He has been
+trying to suck him dry, and has had two interviews with him. I told you
+to send him to Deans Folly. Bridgers would have taken care of him."
+
+"Bridgers can look after nothing," said Milsom.
+
+His eyes roved along the benches and stopped at a worker at the farther
+end of the room.
+
+"He's quiet to-night," he said, "that fellow is too full of himself for
+my liking. Earlier in the evening before I arrived he pulled a gun on
+Schultz. He's too full of gunplay that fellow--excuse the idiom, but I
+was in the same tailor's shop at Portland Gaol as Ned Garrand, the
+Yankee bank-smasher."
+
+Van Heerden made a gesture of impatience.
+
+"About old Heyler," Milsom went on, "I know you think he's dangerous,
+so I've kept him here. There's a room where he can sleep, and he can
+take all the exercise he wants at night. But the old fool is
+restless--he's been asking me what is the object of his work."
+
+"He's difficult. Twice he has nearly betrayed me. As I told you in the
+car, I gave him some experimental work to do and he brought the result
+to me--that was the sample which fell into Beale's hands."
+
+"Mr. Beale is certainly a danger," said Milsom thoughtfully.
+
+Van Heerden made a move toward the laboratory, but Milsom's big hand
+detained him.
+
+"One minute, van Heerden," he said, "whilst you're here you'd better
+decide--when do we start dismantling? I've got to find some excuse to
+send these fellows away."
+
+Van Heerden thought.
+
+"In two days," he said, "that will give you time to clear. You can send
+the men--well, send them to Scotland, some out-of-the-way place where
+news doesn't travel. Tell them we're opening a new factory, and put them
+up at the local hotel."
+
+Milsom inclined his head.
+
+"That sounds easy," he said, "I could take charge of them until the time
+came to skip. One can get a boat at Greenock."
+
+"I shall miss you," said van Heerden frankly, "you were necessary to me,
+Milsom. You're the driving force I wanted, and the only man of my class
+and calibre I can ever expect to meet, one who would go into this
+business with me."
+
+They had reached the big vault and van Heerden stood regarding the scene
+of mental activity with something approaching complacency.
+
+"There is a billion in process of creation," he said.
+
+"I could never think in more than six figures," said Milsom, "and it is
+only under your cheering influence that I can stretch to seven. I am
+going to live in the Argentine, van Heerden. A house on a hill----"
+
+The other shivered, but Milsom went on.
+
+"A gorgeous palace of a house, alive with servants. A string band, a
+perfectly equipped laboratory where I can indulge my passion for
+research, a high-powered auto, wine of the rarest--ah!"
+
+Van Heerden looked at his companion curiously.
+
+"That appeals to you, does it? For me, the control of finance. Endless
+schemes of fortune; endless smashings of rivals, railways, ships, great
+industries juggled and shuffled--that is the life I plan."
+
+"Fine!" said the other laconically.
+
+They walked to a bench and the worker looked up and took off his mask.
+
+He was an old man, and grinned toothlessly at van Heerden.
+
+"Good evening, Signor Doctor," he said in Italian. "Science is long and
+life is short, signor."
+
+He chuckled and, resuming his mask, returned to his work, ignoring the
+two men as though they had no existence.
+
+"A little mad, old Castelli," said Milsom, "that's his one little
+piece--what crooked thing has he done?"
+
+"None that I know," said the other carelessly; "he lost his wife and two
+daughters in the Messina earthquake. I picked him up cheap. He's a
+useful chemist."
+
+They walked from bench to bench, but van Heerden's eyes continuously
+strayed to the door, behind which he pictured a caged Stanford Beale,
+awaiting his doom. The men were beginning to depart now. One by one they
+covered their instruments and their trays, slipped off their masks and
+overalls and disappeared through the door, upon which van Heerden's gaze
+was so often fixed. Their exit, however, would not take them near
+Beale's prison. A few paces along the corridor was another passage
+leading to the yard above, and it was by this way that Hilda Glaum had
+sped to the doctor's room.
+
+Presently all were gone save one industrious worker, who sat peering
+through the eye-piece of his microscope, immovable.
+
+"That's our friend Bridgers," said Milsom, "he's all lit up with the
+alkaloid of _Enythroxylon Coca_---- Well, Bridgers, nearly finished?"
+
+"Huh!" grunted the man without turning.
+
+Milsom shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We must let him finish what he's doing. He is quite oblivious to the
+presence of anybody when he has these fits of industry. By the way, the
+passing of our dear enemy"--he jerked his head to the passage
+door--"will make no change in your plans?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"You have no great anxiety to marry the widow?"
+
+"None," said the doctor.
+
+"And she isn't a widow yet."
+
+It was not Milsom who spoke, but the man at the bench, the industrious
+worker whose eye was still at the microscope.
+
+"Keep your comments to yourself," said van Heerden angrily, "finish your
+work and get out."
+
+"I've finished."
+
+The worker rose slowly and loosening the tapes of his mask pulled it
+off.
+
+"My name is Beale," he said calmly, "I think we've met before. Don't
+move, Milsom, unless you want to save living-expenses--I'm a fairly
+quick shot when I'm annoyed."
+
+Stanford Beale pushed back the microscope and seated himself on the edge
+of the bench.
+
+"You addressed me as Bridgers," he said, "you will find Mr. Bridgers in
+a room behind that stack of boxes. The fact is he surprised me spying
+and was all for shooting me up, but I induced him to come into my
+private office, so to speak, and the rest was easy--he dopes, doesn't
+he? He hadn't the strength of a rat. However, that is all beside the
+point; Dr. van Heerden, what have you to say against my arresting you
+out of hand on a conspiracy charge?"
+
+Van Heerden smiled contemptuously.
+
+"There are many things I can say," he said. "In the first place, you
+have no authority to arrest anybody. You're not a police officer but
+only an American amateur."
+
+"American, yes; but amateur, no," said Beale gently. "As to the
+authority, why I guess I can arrest you first and get the authority
+after."
+
+"On what charge?" demanded Milsom, "there is nothing secret about this
+place, except Doctor van Heerden's association with it--a professional
+man is debarred from mixing in commercial affairs. Is it a crime to run
+a----"
+
+He looked to van Heerden.
+
+"A germicide factory," said van Heerden promptly.
+
+"Suppose I know the character of this laboratory?" asked Beale quietly.
+
+"Carry that kind of story to the police and see what steps they will
+take," said van Heerden scornfully. "My dear Mr. Beale, as I have told
+you once before, you have been reading too much exciting detective
+fiction."
+
+"Very likely," he said, "but anyhow the little story that enthralls me
+just now is called the Green Terror, and I'm looking to you to supply a
+few of the missing pages. And I think you'll do it."
+
+The doctor was lighting a cigarette, and he looked at the other over the
+flaring match with a gleam of malicious amusement in his eyes.
+
+"Your romantic fancies would exasperate me, but for your evident
+sincerity. Having stolen my bride you seem anxious to steal my
+reputation," he said mockingly.
+
+"That," said Beale, slipping off the bench and standing, hands on hips,
+before the doctor, "would take a bit of finding. I tell you, van
+Heerden, that I'm going to call your bluff. I shall place this factory
+in the hands of the police, and I am going to call in the greatest
+scientists in England, France and America, to prove the charge I shall
+make against you on the strength of this!"
+
+He held up between his forefinger and thumb a crystal tube, filled to
+its seal with something that looked like green sawdust.
+
+"The world, the sceptical world, shall know the hell you are preparing
+for them." Stanford Beale's voice trembled with passion and his face was
+dark with the thought of a crime so monstrous that even the outrageous
+treatment of a woman who was more to him than all the world was for the
+moment obliterated from his mind in the contemplation of the danger
+which threatened humanity.
+
+"You say that the police and even the government of this country will
+dismiss my charge as being too fantastic for belief. You shall have the
+satisfaction of knowing that you are right. They think I am mad--but I
+will convince them! In this tube lies the destruction of all your
+fondest dreams, van Heerden. To realize those dreams you have murdered
+two men. For these you killed John Millinborn and the man Prédeaux. But
+you shall not----"
+
+"_Bang!_"
+
+The explosion roared thunderously in the confined space of the vault.
+Beale felt the wind of the bullet and turned, pistol upraised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE SECRET OF THE GREEN RUST
+
+
+A dishevelled figure stood by the boxes, revolver in hand--it was
+Bridgers, the man he had left strapped and bound in the
+"ambulance-room," and Beale cursed the folly which had induced him to
+leave the revolver behind.
+
+"I'll fix you--you brute!" screamed Bridgers, "get away from him--ah!"
+
+Beale's hand flew up, a pencil of flame quivered and again the vault
+trembled to the deafening report.
+
+But Bridgers had dropped to cover. Again he shot, this time with
+unexpected effect. The bullet struck the fuse-box on the opposite wall
+and all the lights went out.
+
+Beale was still holding the glass tube, and this Milsom had seen. Quick
+as thought he hurled himself upon the detective, his big, powerful hands
+gripped the other's wrist and wrenched it round.
+
+Beale set his teeth and manoeuvred for a lock grip, but he was badly
+placed, pressed as he was against the edge of the bench. He felt van
+Heerden's fingers clawing at his hand and the tube was torn away.
+
+Then somebody pulled the revolver from the other hand and there was a
+scamper of feet. He groped his way through the blackness and ran into
+the pile of boxes. A bullet whizzed past him from the half-crazy
+Bridgers, but that was a risk he had to take. He heard the squeak of an
+opening door and stumbled blindly in its direction. Presently he found
+it. He had watched the other men go out and discovered the steps--two
+minutes later he was in the street.
+
+There was no sign of either of the two men. He found a policeman after
+he had walked half a mile, but that intelligent officer could not leave
+his beat and advised him to go to the police station. It was an
+excellent suggestion, for although the sergeant on duty was wholly
+unresponsive there was a telephone, and at the end of the telephone in
+his little Haymarket flat, a Superintendent McNorton, the mention of
+whose very name galvanized the police office to activity.
+
+"I have found the factory I've been looking for, McNorton," said Beale.
+"I'll explain the whole thing to you in the morning. What I want now is
+a search made of the premises."
+
+"We can't do that without a magistrate's warrant," said McNorton's
+voice, "but what we can do is to guard the premises until the warrant is
+obtained. Ask the station sergeant to speak on the 'phone--by the way,
+how is Miss Cresswell, better, I hope?"
+
+"Much better," said the young man shortly.
+
+It was unbelievable that she could ever fill his heart with the ache
+which came at the mention of her name.
+
+He made way for the station sergeant and later accompanied four men back
+to the laboratory. They found all the doors closed. Beale scaled the
+wall but failed to find a way in. He rejoined the sergeant on the other
+side of the wall.
+
+"What is the name of this street?" he asked.
+
+"Playbury Street, sir--this used to be Henderson's Wine Vaults in my
+younger days."
+
+Beale jotted down the address and finding a taxi drove back to the
+police station, wearied and sick at heart.
+
+He arrived in time to be a witness to a curious scene. In the centre of
+the charge-room and facing the sergeant's desk was a man of middle age,
+shabbily dressed, but bearing the indefinable air of one who had seen
+better days. The grey hair was carefully brushed from the familiar face
+and gave him that venerable appearance which pale eyes and a pair of
+thin straight lips (curled now in an amused smile) did their best to
+discount.
+
+By his side stood his captor, a station detective, a bored and apathetic
+man.
+
+"It seems," the prisoner was saying, as Stanford Beale came noiselessly
+into the room, "it seems that under this detestable system of police
+espionage, a fellow may not even take a walk in the cool of the
+morning."
+
+His voice was that of an educated man, his drawling address spoke of his
+confidence.
+
+"Now look here, Parson," said the station sergeant, in that friendly
+tone which the police adopt when dealing with their pet criminals, "you
+know as well as I do that under the Prevention of Crimes Act you, an old
+lag, are liable to be arrested if you are seen in any suspicious
+circumstances--you oughtn't to be wandering about the streets in the
+middle of the night, and if you do, why you mustn't kick because you're
+pinched--anything found on him, Smith?"
+
+"No, sergeant--he was just mouching round, so I pulled him in."
+
+"Where are you living now, Parson?"
+
+The man with extravagant care searched his pockets.
+
+"I have inadvertently left my card-case with my coiner's outfit," he
+said gravely, "but a wire addressed to the Doss House, Mine Street,
+Paddington, will find me--but I don't think I should try. At this moment
+I enjoy the protection of the law. In four days' time I shall be on the
+ocean--why, Mr. Beale?"
+
+Mr. Beale smiled.
+
+"Hullo, Parson--I thought you had sailed to-day."
+
+"The first-class berths are all taken and I will not travel to Australia
+with the common herd."
+
+He turned to the astonished sergeant.
+
+"Can I go--Mr. Beale will vouch for me?"
+
+As he left the charge-room he beckoned the detective, and when they were
+together in the street Beale found that all the Parson's flippancy had
+departed.
+
+"I'm sorry I got you into that scrape," he said seriously. "I ought to
+have been unfrocked, but I was sentenced for my first crime under an
+assumed name. I was not attached to any church at the time and my
+identity has never been discovered. Mr. Beale," he went on with a
+quizzical smile, "I have yet to commit my ideal crime--the murder of a
+bishop who allows a curate to marry a wife on sixty pounds a year." His
+face darkened, and Beale found himself wondering at the contents of the
+tragic years behind the man. Where was the wife...?
+
+"But my private grievances against the world will not interest you,"
+Parson Homo resumed, "I only called you out to--well, to ask your
+pardon."
+
+"It was my own fault, Homo," said Beale quietly, and held out his hand.
+"Good luck--there may be a life for you in the new land."
+
+He stood till the figure passed out of sight, then turned wearily toward
+his own rooms. He went to his room and lay down on his bed fully
+dressed. He was aroused from a troubled sleep by the jangle of the
+'phone. It was McNorton.
+
+"Come down to Scotland House and see the Assistant-Commissioner," he
+said, "he is very anxious to hear more about this factory. He tells me
+that you have already given him an outline of the plot."
+
+"Yes--I'll give you details--I'll be with you in half an hour."
+
+He had a bath and changed his clothes, and breakfastless, for the woman
+who waited on him and kept his flat and who evidently thought his
+absence was likely to be a long one, had not arrived. He drove to the
+grim grey building on the Thames Embankment.
+
+Assistant-Commissioner O'Donnel, a white-haired police veteran, was
+waiting for him, and McNorton was in the office.
+
+"You look fagged," said the commissioner, "take that chair--and you
+look hungry, too. Have you breakfasted?"
+
+Beale shook his head with a smile.
+
+"Get him something, McNorton--ring that bell. Don't protest, my good
+fellow--I've had exactly the same kind of nights as you've had, and I
+know that it is grub that counts more than sleep."
+
+He gave an order to an attendant and not until twenty minutes later,
+when Beale had finished a surprisingly good meal in the superintendent's
+room, did the commissioner allow the story to be told.
+
+"Now I'm ready," he said.
+
+"I'll begin at the beginning," said Stanford Beale. "I was a member of
+the United States Secret Service until after the war when, at the
+request of Mr. Kitson, who is known to you, I came to Europe to devote
+all my time to watching Miss Cresswell and Doctor van Heerden. All that
+you know.
+
+"One day when searching the doctor's rooms in his absence, my object
+being to discover some evidence in relation to the Millinborn murder, I
+found this."
+
+He took a newspaper cutting from his pocket-book and laid it on the
+table.
+
+"It is from _El Impartial_, a Spanish newspaper, and I will translate it
+for you.
+
+
+     "'Thanks to the discretion and eminent genius of Dr. Alphonso
+     Romanos, the Chief Medical Officer of Vigo, the farmers of the
+     district have been spared a catastrophe much lamentable' (I am
+     translating literally). 'On Monday last, Señor Don Marin Fernardey,
+     of La Linea, discovered one of his fields of corn had died in the
+     night and was already in a condition of rot. In alarm, he notified
+     the Chief of Medicines at Vigo, and Dr. Alphonso Romanos, with that
+     zeal and alacrity which has marked his acts, was quickly on the
+     spot, accompanied by a foreign scientist. Happily the learned and
+     gentle doctor is a bacteriologist superb. An examination of the
+     dead corn, which already emitted unpleasant odours, revealed the
+     presence of a new disease, the verde orin (green rust). By his
+     orders the field was burnt. Fortunately, the area was small and
+     dissociated from the other fields of Señor Fernardey by wide
+     _zanzas_. With the exception of two small pieces of the infected
+     corn, carried away by Dr. Romanos and the foreign medical-cavalier,
+     the pest was incinerated.'"
+
+
+"The Foreign Medical-Cavalier," said Beale, "was Doctor van Heerden. The
+date was 1915, when the doctor was taking his summer holiday, and I have
+had no difficulty in tracing him. I sent one of my men to Vigo to
+interview Doctor Romanos, who remembers the circumstances perfectly. He
+himself had thought it wisest to destroy the germ after carefully noting
+their characteristics, and he expressed the anxious hope that his whilom
+friend, van Heerden, had done the same. Van Heerden, of course, did
+nothing of the sort. He has been assiduously cultivating the germs in
+his laboratory. So far as I can ascertain from Professor Heyler, an old
+German who was in van Heerden's service and who seems a fairly honest
+man, the doctor nearly lost the culture, and it was only by sending out
+small quantities to various seedy scientists and getting them to
+experiment in the cultivation of the germ under various conditions that
+he found the medium in which they best flourish. It is, I believe,
+fermented rye-flour, but I am not quite sure."
+
+"To what purpose do you suggest van Heerden will put his cultivations?"
+asked the commissioner.
+
+"I am coming to that. In the course of my inquiries and searchings I
+found that he was collecting very accurate data concerning the great
+wheatfields of the world. From the particulars he was preparing I formed
+the idea that he intended, and intends, sending an army of agents all
+over the world who, at a given signal, will release the germs in the
+growing wheat."
+
+"But surely a few germs sprinkled on a great wheatfield such as you find
+in America would do no more than local damage?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"Mr. O'Donnel," he said soberly, "if I broke a tube of that stuff in
+the corner of a ten-thousand-acre field the whole field would be rotten
+in twenty-four hours! It spreads from stalk to stalk with a rapidity
+that is amazing. One germ multiplies itself in a living cornfield a
+billion times in twelve hours. It would not only be possible, but
+certain that twenty of van Heerden's agents in America could destroy the
+harvests of the United States in a week."
+
+"But why should he do this--he is a German, you say--and Germans do not
+engage in frightfulness unless they see a dividend at the end of it."
+
+"There is a dividend--a dividend of millions at the end of it," said
+Beale, graver, "that much I know. I cannot tell you any more yet. But I
+can say this: that up till yesterday van Heerden was carrying on the
+work without the aid of his Government. That is no longer the case.
+There is now a big syndicate in existence to finance him, and the
+principal shareholder is the German Government. He has already spent
+thousands, money he has borrowed and money he has stolen. As a side-line
+and sheerly to secure her money he carried off John Millinborn's heiress
+with the object of forcing her into a marriage."
+
+The commissioner chewed the end of his cigar.
+
+"This is a State matter and one on which I must consult the Home Office.
+You tell me that the Foreign Office believe your story--of course I do,
+too," he added quickly, "though it sounds wildly improbable. Wait here."
+
+He took up his hat and went out.
+
+"It is going to be a difficult business to convict van Heerden," said
+the superintendent when his chief had gone, "you see, in the English
+courts, motive must be proved to convict before a jury, and there seems
+no motive except revenge. A jury would take a lot of convincing that a
+man spent thousands of pounds to avenge a wrong done to his country."
+
+Beale had no answer to this. At the back of his mind he had a dim idea
+of the sheer money value of the scheme, but he needed other evidence
+than he possessed. The commissioner returned soon after.
+
+"I have been on the 'phone to the Under-Secretary, and we will take
+action against van Heerden on the evidence the factory offers. I'll put
+you in charge of the case, McNorton, you have the search-warrant
+already? Good!"
+
+He shook hands with Beale.
+
+"You will make a European name over this, Mr. Beale," he said.
+
+"I hope Europe will have nothing more to talk about," said Beale.
+
+They passed back to McNorton's office.
+
+"I'll come right along," said the superintendent. He was taking his hat
+from a peg when he saw a closed envelope lying on his desk.
+
+"From the local police station," he said. "How long has this been here?"
+
+His clerk shook his head.
+
+"I can't tell you, sir--it has been there since I came in."
+
+"H'm--I must have overlooked it. Perhaps it is news from your factory."
+
+He tore it open, scanned the contents and swore.
+
+"There goes your evidence, Beale," he said.
+
+"What is it?" asked Beale quickly.
+
+"The factory was burned to the ground in the early hours of the
+morning," he said. "The fire started in the old wine vault and the whole
+building has collapsed."
+
+The detective stared out of the window.
+
+"Can we arrest van Heerden on the evidence of Professor Heyler?"
+
+For answer McNorton handed him the letter. It ran:
+
+
+     "From Inspector-in-charge, S. Paddington, to Supt. McNorton.
+     Factory in Playbury St. under P.O. (Police Observation) completely
+     destroyed by fire, which broke out in basement at 5.20 this
+     morning. One body found, believed to be a man named Heyler."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD
+
+
+There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a
+menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of
+pillows, gives to the golden sunlight which filters through a billion
+panes the very hues and character of jaundice. It is the menace of
+factory and workshop, harsh prisons which shut men and women from the
+green fields and the pleasant by-ways; the menace of new
+responsibilities to be faced and new difficulties to be overcome. Into
+the space of Monday morning drain the dregs of last week's commitments
+to gather into stagnant pools upon the desks and benches of toiling and
+scheming humanity. It is the end of the holiday, the foot of the new
+hill whose crest is Saturday night and whose most pleasant outlook is
+the Sunday to come.
+
+Men go to their work reluctant and resentful and reach out for the
+support which the lunch-hour brings. One o'clock in London is about six
+o'clock in Chicago. Therefore the significance of shoals of cablegrams
+which lay on the desks of certain brokers was not wholly apparent until
+late in the evening, and was not thoroughly understood until late on
+Tuesday morning, when to other and greater shoals of cables came the
+terse price-lists from the Board of Trade in Chicago, and on top of all
+the wirelessed Press accounts for the sensational jump in wheat.
+
+"Wheat soaring," said one headline. "Frantic scenes in the Pit," said
+another. "Wheat reaches famine price," blared a third.
+
+Beale passing through to Whitehall heard the shrill call of the newsboys
+and caught the word "wheat." He snatched a paper from the hands of a boy
+and read.
+
+Every corn-market in the Northern Hemisphere was in a condition of
+chaos. Prices were jumping to a figure beyond any which the most
+stringent days of the war had produced.
+
+He slipped into a telephone booth, gave a Treasury number and McNorton
+answered.
+
+"Have you seen the papers?" he asked.
+
+"No, but I've heard. You mean about the wheat boom?"
+
+"Yes--the game has started."
+
+"Where are you--wait for me, I'll join you."
+
+Three minutes later McNorton appeared from the Whitehall end of Scotland
+Yard. Beale hailed a cab and they drove to the hotel together.
+
+"Warrants have been issued for van Heerden and Milsom and the girl
+Glaum," he said. "I expect we shall find the nest empty, but I have sent
+men to all the railway stations--do you think we've moved too late?"
+
+"Everything depends on the system that van Heerden has adopted," replied
+Beale, "he is the sort of man who would keep everything in his own
+hands. If he has done that, and we catch him, we may prevent a world
+catastrophe."
+
+At the hotel they found Kitson waiting in the vestibule.
+
+"Well?" he asked, "I gather that you've lost van Heerden, but if the
+newspapers mean anything, his hand is down on the table. Everybody is
+crazy here," he said, as he led the way to the elevator, "I've just been
+speaking to the Under-Minister for Agriculture--all Europe is scared.
+Now what is the story?" he asked, when they were in his room.
+
+He listened attentively and did not interrupt until Stanford Beale had
+finished.
+
+"That's big enough," he said. "I owe you an apology--much as I was
+interested in Miss Cresswell, I realize that her fate was as nothing
+beside the greater issue."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked McNorton.
+
+"The Wheat Panic? God knows. It may mean bread at a guinea a pound--it
+is too early to judge."
+
+The door was opened unceremoniously and a man strode in. McNorton was
+the first to recognize the intruder and rose to his feet.
+
+"I'm sorry to interrupt you," said Lord Sevington--it was the Foreign
+Secretary of Great Britain himself. "Well, Beale, the fantastic story
+you told me seems in a fair way to being realized."
+
+"This is Mr. Kitson," introduced Stanford, and the grey-haired statesman
+bowed.
+
+"I sent for you, but decided I couldn't wait--so I came myself. Ah,
+McNorton, what are the chances of catching van Heerden?"
+
+"No man has ever escaped from this country once his identity was
+established," said the police chief hopefully.
+
+"If we had taken Beale's advice we should have the gentleman under lock
+and key," said the Foreign Minister, shaking his head. "You probably
+know that Mr. Beale has been in communication with the Foreign Office
+for some time?" he said, addressing Kitson.
+
+"I did not know," admitted the lawyer.
+
+"We thought it was one of those brilliant stories which the American
+newspaper reporter loves," smiled the minister.
+
+"I don't quite get the commercial end of it," said Kitson. "How does van
+Heerden benefit by destroying the crops of the world?"
+
+"He doesn't benefit, because the crops won't be destroyed," said the
+minister. "The South Russian crops are all right, the German crops are
+intact--but are practically all mortgaged to the German Government."
+
+"The Government?"
+
+"This morning the German Government have made two announcements. The
+first is the commandeering of all the standing crops, and at the same
+time the taking over of all options on the sale of wheat. Great
+granaries are being established all over Germany. The old Zeppelin
+sheds----"
+
+"Great heavens!" cried Kitson, and stared at Stanford Beale. "That was
+the reason they took over the sheds?"
+
+"A pretty good reason, too," said Beale, "storage is everything in a
+crisis like this. What is the second announcement, sir?"
+
+"They prohibit the export of grain," said Lord Sevington, "the whole of
+Germany is to be rationed for a year, bread is to be supplied by the
+Government free of all cost to the people; in this way Germany handles
+the surpluses for us to buy."
+
+"What will she charge?"
+
+"What she wishes. If van Heerden's scheme goes through, if throughout
+the world the crops are destroyed and only that which lies under
+Germany's hand is spared, what must we pay? Every penny we have taken
+from Germany; every cent of her war costs must be returned to her in
+exchange for wheat."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why impossible? There is no limit to the price of rarities. What is
+rarer than gold is more costly than gold. You who are in the room are
+the only people in the world who know the secret of the Green Rust, and
+I can speak frankly to you. I tell you that we must either buy from
+Germany or make war on Germany, and the latter course is impossible, and
+if it were possible would give us no certainty of relief. We shall have
+to pay, Britain, France, America, Italy--we shall have to pay. We shall
+pay in gold, we may have to pay in battleships and material. Our stocks
+of corn have been allowed to fall and to-day we have less than a month's
+supply in England. Every producing country in the world will stop
+exporting instantly, and they, too, with the harvest nearly due, will be
+near the end of their stocks. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, in your judgment,
+is it possible to save the crops by local action?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"I doubt it," he said; "it would mean the mobilisation of millions of
+men, the surrounding of all corn-tracts--and even then I doubt if your
+protection would be efficacious. You could send the stuff into the
+fields by a hundred methods. The only thing to do is to catch van
+Heerden and stifle the scheme at its fountain-head."
+
+The Chief of the Foreign Ministry strode up and down the room, his hands
+thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.
+
+"It means our holding out for twelve months," he said. "Can we do it?"
+
+"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.
+
+Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.
+
+"More than that? What do you mean?"
+
+"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have
+consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be
+infected for ten years."
+
+The four men looked at one another helplessly.
+
+"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric
+of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a
+hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very
+end of civilization!"
+
+Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.
+
+Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of
+a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.
+
+Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more
+human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were
+studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.
+
+McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped
+and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a
+sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble
+of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill
+high-pitched whine of a newsboy.
+
+Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare
+headlines than a newspaper sensation.
+
+To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but
+for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would
+turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.
+
+"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I
+had on August 1, 1914--that sensation of unreality."
+
+His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into
+which he had fallen, and he started.
+
+"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to act--Mr. McNorton,
+you will go back to Scotland Yard and ask the Chief Commissioner to
+attend at the office of the Privy Seal. Mr. Beale will keep in touch
+with me all the time."
+
+Without any formal leave-taking he made his exit, followed by
+Superintendent McNorton.
+
+"That's a badly rattled man," said Kitson shrewdly, "the Government may
+fall on this news. What will you do?"
+
+"Get van Heerden," said the other.
+
+"It is the job of your life," said Kitson quietly, and Beale knew within
+a quarter of an hour that the lawyer did not exaggerate.
+
+Van Heerden had disappeared with dramatic suddenness. Detectives who
+visited his flat discovered that his personal belongings had been
+removed in the early hours of the morning. He had left with two trunks
+(which were afterwards found in a cloak-room of a London railway
+terminus) and a companion who was identified as Milsom. Whether the car
+had gone east or north, south or west, nobody knew.
+
+In the early editions of the evening newspapers, side by side with the
+account of the panic scenes on 'Change was the notice:
+
+
+     "The Air Ministry announce the suspension of Order 63 of
+     Trans-Marine Flight Regulations. No aeroplane will be allowed to
+     cross the coastline by day or night without first descending at a
+     coast control station. Aerial patrols have orders to force down any
+     machine which does not obey the 'Descend' signal. This signal is
+     now displayed at all coast stations."
+
+
+Every railway station in England, every port of embarkation, were
+watched by police. The one photograph of van Heerden in existence,
+thousands of copies of an excellent snapshot taken by one of Beale's
+assistants, were distributed by aeroplane to every district centre. At
+two o'clock Hilda Glaum was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street. She
+showed neither surprise nor resentment and offered no information as to
+van Heerden's whereabouts.
+
+Throughout the afternoon there were the usual crops of false arrest and
+detention of perfectly innocent people, and at five o'clock it was
+announced that all telegraphic communication with the Continent and with
+the Western Hemisphere was suspended until further notice.
+
+Beale came back from Barking, whither he had gone to interview a
+choleric commercial traveller who bore some facial resemblance to van
+Heerden, and had been arrested in consequence, and discovered that
+something like a Council of War was being held in Kitson's private room.
+
+McNorton and two of his assistants were present. There was an
+Under-Secretary from the Foreign Office, a great scientist whose
+services had been called upon, and a man whom he recognized as a member
+of the Committee of the Corn Exchange. He shook his head in answer to
+McNorton's inquiring glance, and would have taken his seat at the table,
+but Kitson, who had risen on his entrance, beckoned him to the window.
+
+"We can do without you for a little while, Beale," he said, lowering his
+voice. "There's somebody there," he jerked his head to a door which led
+to another room of his suite, "who requires an explanation, and I think
+your time will be so fully occupied in the next few days that you had
+better seize this opportunity whilst you have it."
+
+"Miss Cresswell!" said Beale, in despair.
+
+The old man nodded slowly.
+
+"What does she know?"
+
+"That is for you to discover," said Kitson gently, and pushed him toward
+the door.
+
+With a quaking heart he turned the knob and stepped guiltily into the
+presence of the girl who in the eyes of the law was his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM
+
+
+She rose to meet him, and he stood spellbound, still holding the handle
+of the door. It seemed that she had taken on new qualities, a new and an
+ethereal grace. At the very thought even of his technical possession of
+this smiling girl who came forward to greet him, his heart thumped so
+loudly that he felt she must hear it. She was pale, and there were dark
+shadows under her eyes, but the hand that gripped his was firm and warm
+and living.
+
+"I have to thank you for much, Mr. Beale," she said. "Mr. Kitson has
+told me that I owe my rescue to you."
+
+"Did he?" he asked awkwardly, and wondered what else Kitson had told
+her.
+
+"I am trying to be very sensible, and I want you to help me, because you
+are the most sensible man I know."
+
+She went back to the lounge-chair where she had been sitting, and
+pointed to another.
+
+"It was horribly melodramatic, wasn't it? but I suppose the life of a
+detective is full of melodrama."
+
+"Oh, brimming over," he said. "If you keep very quiet I will give you a
+résumé of my most interesting cases," he said, making a pathetic attempt
+to be flippant, and the girl detected something of his insincerity.
+
+"You have had a trying day," she said, with quick sympathy, "have you
+arrested Doctor van Heerden?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I am glad," she said.
+
+"Glad?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Before he is arrested," she spoke with some hesitation, "I want one
+little matter cleared up. I asked Mr. Kitson, but he put me off and said
+you would tell me everything."
+
+"What is it?" he asked steadily.
+
+She got up and went to her bag which stood upon a side-table, opened it
+and took out something which she laid on the palm of her hand. She came
+back with hand extended, and Beale looked at the glittering object on
+her palm and was speechless.
+
+"Do you see that?" she asked.
+
+He nodded, having no words for the moment, for "that" was a thin gold
+ring.
+
+"It is a wedding ring," she said, "and I found it on my finger when I
+recovered."
+
+"Oh!" said Beale blankly.
+
+"Was I married?" she asked.
+
+He made two or three ineffectual attempts to speak and ended by nodding.
+
+"I feared so," she said quietly, "you see I recollect nothing of what
+happened. The last thing I remembered was Doctor van Heerden sitting
+beside me and putting something into my arm. It hurt a little, but not
+very much, and I remember I spoke to him. I think it was about you," a
+little colour came to her face, "or perhaps he was speaking about you, I
+am not sure," she said hurriedly; "I know that you came into it somehow,
+and that is all I can recall."
+
+"Nothing else?" he asked dismally.
+
+"Nothing," she said.
+
+"Try, try, try to remember," he urged her.
+
+He realized he was being a pitiable coward and that he wanted to shift
+the responsibility for the revelation upon her. She smiled, and shook
+her head.
+
+"I am sorry but I can't remember anything. Now you are going to tell
+me."
+
+He discovered that he was sitting on the edge of the chair and that he
+was more nervous than he had ever been in his life.
+
+"So I am going to tell you," he said, in a hollow voice, "of course I'll
+tell you. It is rather difficult, you understand."
+
+She looked at him kindly.
+
+"I know it must be difficult for a man like you to speak of your own
+achievements. But for once you are going to be immodest," she laughed.
+
+"Well, you see," he began, "I knew van Heerden wanted to marry you. I
+knew that all along. I guessed he wanted to marry you for your money,
+because in the circumstances there was nothing else he could want to
+marry you for," he added. "I mean," he corrected himself hastily, "that
+money was the most attractive thing to him."
+
+"This doesn't sound very flattering," she smiled.
+
+"I know I am being crude, but you will forgive me when you learn what I
+have to say," he said huskily. "Van Heerden wanted to marry you----"
+
+"And he married me," she said, "and I am going to break that marriage as
+soon as I possibly can."
+
+"I know, I hope so," said Stanford Beale. "I believe it is difficult,
+but I will do all I possibly can. Believe me, Miss Cresswell----"
+
+"I am not Miss Cresswell any longer," she said with a wry little face,
+"but please don't call me by my real name."
+
+"I won't," he said fervently.
+
+"You knew he wanted to marry me for my money and not for my beauty or my
+accomplishments," she said, "and so you followed me down to Deans
+Folly."
+
+"Yes, yes, but I must explain. I know it will sound horrible to you and
+you may have the lowest opinion of me, but I have got to tell you."
+
+He saw the look of alarm gather in her eyes and plunged into his story.
+
+"I thought that if you were already married van Heerden would be
+satisfied and take no further steps against you."
+
+"But I wasn't already married," she said, puzzled.
+
+"Wait, wait, please," he begged, "keep that in your mind, that I was
+satisfied van Heerden wanted you for your money, and that if you were
+already married or even if you weren't and he thought you were I could
+save you from dangers, the extent of which even I do not know. And there
+was a man named Homo, a crook. He had been a parson and had all the
+manner and style of his profession. So I got a special licence in my own
+name."
+
+"You?" she said breathlessly. "A marriage licence? To marry me?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"And I took Homo with me in my search for you. I knew that I should have
+a very small margin of time, and I thought if Homo performed the
+ceremony and I could confront van Heerden with the accomplished
+deed----"
+
+She sprang to her feet with a laugh.
+
+"Oh, I see, I see," she said. "Oh, how splendid! And you went through
+this mock ceremony! Where was I?"
+
+"You were at the window," he said miserably.
+
+"But how lovely! And you were outside and your parson with the funny
+name--but that's delicious! So I wasn't married at all and this is your
+ring." She picked it up with a mocking light in her eyes, and held it
+out to him, but he shook his head.
+
+"You were married," he said, in a voice which was hardly audible.
+
+"Married? How?"
+
+"Homo was not a fake! He was a real clergyman! And the marriage was
+legal!"
+
+They looked at one another without speaking. On the girl's part there
+was nothing but pure amazement; but Stanford Beale read horror,
+loathing, consternation and unforgiving wrath, and waited, as the
+criminal waits for his sentence, upon her next words.
+
+"So I am really married--to you," she said wonderingly.
+
+"You will never forgive me, I know." He did not look at her now. "My own
+excuse is that I did what I did because I--wanted to save you. I might
+have sailed in with a gun and shot them up. I might have waited my
+chance and broken into the house. I might have taken a risk and
+surrounded the place with police, but that would have meant delay. I
+didn't do the normal things or take the normal view--I couldn't with
+you."
+
+He did not see the momentary tenderness in her eyes, because he was not
+looking at her, and went on:
+
+"That's the whole of the grisly story. Mr. Kitson will advise you as to
+what steps you may take to free yourself. It was a most horrible
+blunder, and it was all the more tragic because you were the victim,
+you of all the persons in the world!"
+
+She had put the ring down, and now she took it up again and examined it
+curiously.
+
+"It is rather--quaint, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, very."
+
+He thought he heard a sob and looked up. She was laughing, at first
+silently, then, as the humour of the thing seized her, her laugh rang
+clear and he caught its infection.
+
+"It's funny," she said at last, wiping her eyes, "there is a humorous
+side to it. Poor Mr. Beale!"
+
+"I deserve a little pity," he said ruefully.
+
+"Why?" she asked quickly. "Have you committed bigamy?"
+
+"Not noticeably so," he answered, with a smile.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do about it? It's rather serious when one
+thinks of it--seriously. So I am Mrs. Stanford Beale--poor Mr. Beale,
+and poor Mrs. Beale-to-be. I do hope," she said, and this time her
+seriousness was genuine, "that I have not upset any of your plans--too
+much. Oh," she sat down suddenly, staring at him, "it would be awful,"
+she said in a hushed voice, "and I would never forgive myself. Is
+there--forgive my asking the question, but I suppose," with a flashing
+smile, "as your wife I am entitled to your confidence--is there somebody
+you are going to marry?"
+
+"I have neither committed bigamy nor do I contemplate it," said Beale,
+who was gradually recovering his grip of the situation, "if you mean am
+I engaged to somebody--in fact, to a girl," he said recklessly, "the
+answer is in the negative. There will be no broken hearts on my side of
+the family. I have no desire to probe your wounded heart----"
+
+"Don't be flippant," she stopped him sternly; "it is a very terrible
+situation, Mr. Beale, and I hardly dare to think of it."
+
+"I realize how terrible it is," he said, suddenly bold, "and as I tell
+you, I will do everything I can to correct my blunder."
+
+"Does Mr. Kitson know?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"What did Mr. Kitson say? Surely he gave you some advice."
+
+"He said----" began Stanford, and went red.
+
+The girl did not pursue the subject.
+
+"Come, let us talk about the matter like rational beings," she said
+cheerfully. "I have got over my first inclination to swoon. You must
+curb your very natural desire to be haughty."
+
+"I cannot tell you what we can do yet. I don't want to discuss the
+unpleasant details of a divorce," he said, "and perhaps you will let me
+have a few days before we decide on any line of action. Van Heerden is
+still at large, and until he is under lock and key and this immense
+danger which threatens the world is removed, I can hardly think
+straight."
+
+"Mr. Kitson has told me about van Heerden," she said quietly. "Isn't it
+rather a matter for the English police to deal with? As I have reason to
+know," she shivered slightly, "Doctor van Heerden is a man without any
+fear or scruple."
+
+"My scruples hardly keep me awake at night," he said, "and I guess I'm
+not going to let up on van Heerden. I look upon it as my particular
+job."
+
+"Isn't it"--she hesitated--"isn't it rather dangerous?"
+
+"For me?" he laughed, "no, I don't think so. And even if it were in the
+most tragic sense of the word dangerous, why, that would save you a
+great deal of unpleasantness."
+
+"I think you are being horrid," she said.
+
+"I am sorry," he responded quickly, "I was fishing for a little pity,
+and it was rather cheap and theatrical. No, I do not think there is very
+much danger. Van Heerden is going to keep under cover, and he is after
+something bigger than my young life."
+
+"Is Milsom with him?"
+
+"He is the weak link in van Heerden's scheme," Beale said. "Somehow van
+Heerden doesn't strike me as a good team leader, and what little I have
+seen of Milsom leads me to the belief that he is hardly the man to
+follow the doctor's lead blindly. Besides, it is always easier to catch
+two men than one," he laughed. "That is an old detective's axiom and it
+works out."
+
+She put out her hand.
+
+"It's a tangled business, isn't it?" she said. "I mean us. Don't let it
+add to your other worries. Forget our unfortunate relationship until we
+can smooth things out."
+
+He shook her hand in silence.
+
+"And now I am coming out to hear all that you clever people suggest,"
+she said. "Please don't look alarmed. I have been talking all the
+afternoon and have been narrating my sad experience--such as I
+remember--to the most important people. Cabinet Ministers and police
+commissioners and doctors and things."
+
+"One moment," he said.
+
+He took from his pocket a stout book.
+
+"I was wondering what that was," she laughed. "You haven't been buying
+me reading-matter?"
+
+He nodded, and held the volume so that she could read the title.
+
+"'A Friend in Need,' by S. Beale. I didn't know you wrote!" she said in
+surprise.
+
+"I am literary and even worse," he said flippantly. "I see you have a
+shelf of books here. If you will allow me I will put it with the
+others."
+
+"But mayn't I see it?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I just want to tell you all you have said about van Heerden is true. He
+is a most dangerous man. He may yet be dangerous to you. I don't want
+you to touch that little book unless you are in really serious trouble.
+Will you promise me?"
+
+She opened her eyes wide.
+
+"But, Mr. Beale----?"
+
+"Will you promise me?" he said again.
+
+"Of course I'll promise you, but I don't quite understand."
+
+"You will understand," he said.
+
+He opened the door for her and she passed out ahead of him. Kitson came
+to meet them.
+
+"I suppose there is no news?" asked Stanford.
+
+"None," said the other, "except high political news. There has been an
+exchange of notes between the Triple Alliance and the German Government.
+All communication with the Ukraine is cut off, and three ships have been
+sunk in the Bosphorus so cleverly that our grain ships in the Black Sea
+are isolated."
+
+"That's bad," said Beale.
+
+He walked to the table. It was littered with maps and charts and printed
+tabulations. McNorton got up and joined them.
+
+"I have just had a 'phone message through from the Yard," he said.
+"Carter, my assistant, says that he's certain van Heerden has not left
+London."
+
+"Has the girl spoken?"
+
+"Glaum? No, she's as dumb as an oyster. I doubt if you would get her to
+speak even if you put her through the third degree, and we don't allow
+that."
+
+"So I am told," said Beale dryly.
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Unlock it somebody," said Kitson. "I turned the key."
+
+The nearest person was the member of the Corn Exchange Committee, and he
+clicked back the lock and the door opened to admit a waiter.
+
+"There's a man here----" he said; but before he could say more he was
+pushed aside and a dusty, dishevelled figure stepped into the room and
+glanced round.
+
+"My name is Milsom," he said. "I have come to give King's Evidence!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE LOST CODE
+
+
+"I'm Milsom," said the man in the doorway again.
+
+His clothes were grimed and dusty, his collar limp and soiled. There
+were two days' growth of red-grey stubble on his big jaw, and he bore
+himself like a man who was faint from lack of sleep.
+
+He walked unsteadily to the table and fell into a chair.
+
+"Where is van Heerden?" asked Beale, but Milsom shook his head.
+
+"I left him two hours ago, after a long and unprofitable talk on
+patriotism," he said, and laughed shortly. "At that time he was making
+his way back to his house in Southwark."
+
+"Then he is in London--here in London!"
+
+Milsom nodded.
+
+"You won't find him," he said brusquely. "I tell you I've left him after
+a talk about certain patriotic misgivings on my part--look!"
+
+He lifted his right hand, which hitherto he had kept concealed by his
+side, and Oliva shut her eyes and felt deathly sick.
+
+"Right index digit and part of the phalanges shot away," said Milsom
+philosophically. "That was my trigger-finger--but he shot first. Give me
+a drink!"
+
+They brought him a bottle of wine, and he drank it from a long tumbler
+in two great breathless gulps.
+
+"You've closed the coast to him," he said, "you shut down your wires and
+cables, you're watching the roads, but he'll get his message through,
+if----"
+
+"Then he hasn't cabled?" said Beale eagerly. "Milsom, this means liberty
+for you--liberty and comfort. Tell us the truth, man, help us hold off
+this horror that van Heerden is loosing on the world and there's no
+reward too great for you."
+
+Milsom's eyes narrowed.
+
+"It wasn't the hope of reward or hope of pardon that made me break with
+van Heerden," he said in his slow way. "You'd laugh yourself sick if I
+told you. It was--it was the knowledge that this country would be down
+and out; that the people who spoke my tongue and thought more or less as
+I thought should be under the foot of the Beast--fevered sentimentality!
+You don't believe that?"
+
+"I believe it."
+
+It was Oliva who spoke, and it appeared that this was the first time
+that Milsom had noticed her presence, for his eyes opened wider.
+
+"You--oh, you believe it, do you?" and he nodded.
+
+"But why is van Heerden waiting?" asked McNorton. "What is he waiting
+for?"
+
+The big man rolled his head helplessly from side to side, and the hard
+cackle of his laughter was very trying to men whose nerves were raw and
+on edge.
+
+"That's the fatal lunacy of it! I think it must be a national
+characteristic. You saw it in the war again and again--a wonderful plan
+brought to naught by some piece of over-cleverness on the part of the
+super-man."
+
+A wild hope leapt to Beale's heart.
+
+"Then it has failed! The rust has not answered----?"
+
+But Milsom shook his head wearily.
+
+"The rust is all that he thinks--and then some," he said. "No, it isn't
+that. It is in the work of organization where the hitch has occurred.
+You know something of the story. Van Heerden has agents in every country
+in the world. He has spent nearly a hundred thousand pounds in
+perfecting his working plans, and I'm willing to admit that they are
+wellnigh perfect. Such slight mistakes as sending men to South Africa
+and Australia where the crops are six months later than the European and
+American harvests may be forgiven, because the German thinks
+longitudinally, and north and south are the two points of the compass
+which he never bothers his head about. If the Germans had been a
+seafaring people they'd have discovered America before Columbus, but
+they would never have found the North Pole or rounded the Cape in a
+million years."
+
+He paused, and they saw the flicker of a smile in his weary eyes.
+
+"The whole scheme is under van Heerden's hand. At the word 'Go'
+thousands of his agents begin their work of destruction--but the word
+must come from him. He has so centralized his scheme that if he died
+suddenly without that word being uttered, the work of years would come
+to naught. I guess he is suspicious of everybody, including his new
+Government. For the best part of a year he has been arranging and
+planning. With the assistance of a girl, a compatriot of his, he has
+reduced all things to order. In every country is a principal agent who
+possesses a copy of a simple code. At the proper moment van Heerden
+would cable a word which meant 'Get busy' or 'Hold off until you hear
+from me,' or 'Abandon scheme for this year and collect cultures.' I
+happen to be word-perfect in the meanings of the code words because van
+Heerden has so often drummed them into me."
+
+"What are the code words?"
+
+"I'm coming to that," nodded Milsom. "Van Heerden is the type of
+scientist that never trusts his memory. You find that kind in all the
+school--they usually spend their time making the most complete and
+detailed notes, and their studies are packed with memoranda. Yet he had
+a wonderful memory for the commonplace things--for example, in the plain
+English of his three messages he was word perfect. He could tell you
+off-hand the names and addresses of all his agents. But when it came to
+scientific data his mind was a blank until he consulted his authorities.
+It seemed that once he made a note his mind was incapable of retaining
+the information he had committed to paper. That, as I say, is a
+phenomenon which is not infrequently met with amongst men of science."
+
+"And he had committed the code to paper?" asked Kitson.
+
+"I am coming to that. After the fire at the Paddington works, van
+Heerden said the time had come to make a get away. He was going to the
+Continent, I was to sail for Canada. 'Before you go,' he said, 'I will
+give you the code--but I am afraid that I cannot do that until after
+ten o'clock.'"
+
+McNorton was scribbling notes in shorthand and carefully circled the
+hour.
+
+"We went back to his flat and had breakfast together--it was then about
+five o'clock. He packed a few things and I particularly noticed that he
+looked very carefully at the interior of a little grip which he had
+brought the previous night from Staines. He was so furtive, carrying the
+bag to the light of the window, that I supposed he was consulting his
+code, and I wondered why he should defer giving me the information until
+ten o'clock. Anyway, I could swear he took something from the bag and
+slipped it into his pocket. We left the flat soon after and drove to a
+railway station where the baggage was left. Van Heerden had given me
+bank-notes for a thousand pounds in case we should be separated, and I
+went on to the house in South London. You needn't ask me where it is
+because van Heerden is not there."
+
+He gulped again at the wine.
+
+"At eleven o'clock van Heerden came back," resumed Milsom, "and if ever
+a man was panic-stricken it was he--the long and the short of it is that
+the code was mislaid."
+
+"Mislaid!" Beale was staggered.
+
+Here was farce interpolated into tragedy--the most grotesque, the most
+unbelievable farce.
+
+"Mislaid," said Milsom. "He did not say as much, but I gathered from the
+few disjointed words he flung at me that the code was not irredeemably
+lost; in fact, I have reason to believe that he knows where it is. It
+was after that that van Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of
+me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained
+all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help
+him in a burglary--and burglary is not my forte."
+
+"What did he want to burgle?" asked McNorton, with professional
+interest.
+
+"Ah! There you have me! It was the question I asked and he refused to
+answer. I was to put myself in his hands and there was to be some
+shooting if, as he thought likely, a caretaker was left on the premises
+to be entered. I told him flat--we were sitting on Wandsworth Common at
+the time--that he could leave me out, and that is where we became
+mutually offensive."
+
+He looked at his maimed hand.
+
+"I dressed it roughly at a chemist's. The iodine open dressing isn't
+beautiful, but it is antiseptic. He shot to kill, too, there's no doubt
+about that. A very perfect little gentleman!"
+
+"He's in London?" said McNorton. "That simplifies matters."
+
+"To my mind it complicates rather than simplifies," said Beale. "London
+is a vast proposition. Can you give us any idea as to the hour the
+burglary was planned for?"
+
+"Eleven," said Milsom promptly, "that is to say, in a little over an
+hour's time."
+
+"And you have no idea of the locality?"
+
+"Somewhere in the East of London. We were to have met at Aldgate."
+
+"I don't understand it," said McNorton. "Do you suggest that the code is
+in the hands of somebody who is not willing to part with it? And now
+that he no longer needs it for you, is there any reason why he should
+wait?"
+
+"Every reason," replied Milsom, and Stanford Beale nodded in agreement.
+"It was not only for me he wanted it. He as good as told me that unless
+he recovered it he would be unable to communicate with his men."
+
+"What do you think he'll do?"
+
+"He'll get Bridgers to assist him. Bridgers is a pretty sore man, and
+the doctor knows just where he can find him."
+
+As Oliva listened an idea slowly dawned in her mind that she might
+supply a solution to the mystery of the missing code. It was a wildly
+improbable theory she held, but even so slender a possibility was not to
+be discarded. She slipped from the group and went back to her room. For
+the accommodation of his ward, James Kitson had taken the adjoining
+suite to his own and had secured a lady's maid from an agency for the
+girl's service. She passed through the sitting-room to her own bedroom,
+and found the maid putting the room ready for the night.
+
+"Minnie," she said, throwing a quick glance about the apartment, "where
+did you put the clothes I took off when I came?"
+
+"Here, miss."
+
+The girl opened the wardrobe and Oliva made a hurried search.
+
+"Did you find--anything, a little ticket?"
+
+The girl smiled.
+
+"Oh yes, miss. It was in your stocking."
+
+Oliva laughed.
+
+"I suppose you thought it was rather queer, finding that sort of thing
+in a girl's stocking," she asked, but the maid was busily opening the
+drawers of the dressing-table in search of something.
+
+"Here it is, miss."
+
+She held a small square ticket in her hand and held it with such
+disapproving primness that Oliva nearly laughed.
+
+"I found it in your stocking, miss," she said again.
+
+"Quite right," said Oliva coolly, "that's where I put it. I always carry
+my pawn tickets in my stocking."
+
+The admirable Minnie sniffed.
+
+"I suppose you have never seen such a thing," smiled Oliva, "and you
+hardly knew what it was."
+
+The lady's maid turned very red. She had unfortunately seen many such
+certificates of penury, but all that was part of her private life, and
+she had been shocked beyond measure to be confronted with this
+too-familiar evidence of impecuniosity in the home of a lady who
+represented to her an assured income and comfortable pickings.
+
+Oliva went back to her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a
+sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which
+arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed
+her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the
+details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand
+stepped into the room.
+
+If they had missed her after she had left nobody saw her return. They
+were sitting in a group about the table, firing questions at the big
+unshaven man who had made such a dramatic entrance to the conference and
+who, with a long cigar in the corner of his mouth, was answering readily
+and fluently.
+
+But faced with the tangible workings of criminal investigation her
+resolution and her theories shrank to vanishing-point. She clasped the
+ticket in her hand and felt for a pocket, but the dressmaker had not
+provided her with that useful appendage.
+
+So she turned and went softly back to her room, praying that she would
+not be noticed. She closed the door gently behind her and turned to meet
+a well-valeted man in evening-dress who was standing in the middle of
+the room, a light overcoat thrown over his arm, his silk hat tilted back
+from his forehead, a picture of calm assurance.
+
+"Don't move," said van Heerden, "and don't scream. And be good enough to
+hand over the pawn ticket you are holding in your hand."
+
+Silently she obeyed, and as she handed the little pasteboard across the
+table which separated them she looked past him to the bookshelf behind
+his head, and particularly to a new volume which bore the name of
+Stanford Beale.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE WATCH
+
+
+"Thanks," said van Heerden, pocketing the ticket, "it is of no use to me
+now, for I cannot wait. I gather that you have not disclosed the fact
+that this ticket is in your possession."
+
+"I don't know how you gather that," she said.
+
+"Lower your voice!" he hissed menacingly. "I gather as much because
+Beale knew the ticket would not be in my possession now. If he only
+knew, if he only had a hint of its existence, I fear my scheme would
+fail. As it is, it will succeed. And now," he said with a smile, "time
+is short and your preparations must be of the briefest. I will save you
+the trouble of asking questions by telling you that I am going to take
+you along with me. I certainly cannot afford to leave you. Get your
+coat."
+
+With a shrug she walked past him to the bedroom and he followed.
+
+"Are we going far?" she asked.
+
+There was no tremor in her voice and she felt remarkably self-possessed.
+
+"That you will discover," said he.
+
+"I am not asking out of idle curiosity, but I want to know whether I
+ought to take a bag."
+
+"Perhaps it would be better," he said.
+
+She carried the little attaché case back to the sitting-room.
+
+"You have no objection to my taking a little light reading-matter?" she
+asked contemptuously. "I am afraid you are not a very entertaining
+companion, Dr. van Heerden."
+
+"Excellent girl," said van Heerden cheerfully. "Take anything you like."
+
+She slipped a book from the shelf and nearly betrayed herself by an
+involuntary exclamation as she felt its weight.
+
+"You are not very original in your methods," she said, "this is the
+second time you have spirited me off."
+
+"The gaols of England, as your new-found friend Milsom will tell you,
+are filled with criminals who departed from the beaten tracks," said van
+Heerden. "Walk out into the corridor and turn to the right. I will be
+close behind you. A little way along you will discover a narrow passage
+which leads to the service staircase. Go down that. I am sure you
+believe me when I say that I will kill you if you attempt to make any
+signal or scream or appeal for help."
+
+She did not answer. It was because of this knowledge and this fear,
+which was part of her youthful equipment--for violent death is a very
+terrible prospect to the young and the healthy--that she obeyed him at
+all.
+
+They walked down the stone stairs, through an untidy, low-roofed lobby,
+redolent of cooking food, into the street, without challenge and without
+attracting undue notice.
+
+Van Heerden's car was waiting at the end of the street, and she thought
+she recognized the chauffeur as Bridgers.
+
+"Once more we ride together," said van Heerden gaily, "and what will be
+the end of this adventure for you depends entirely upon your
+loyalty--what are you opening your bag for?" he asked, peering in the
+dark.
+
+"I am looking for a handkerchief," said Oliva. "I am afraid I am going
+to cry!"
+
+He settled himself back in the corner of the car with a sigh of
+resignation, accepting her explanation--sarcasm was wholly wasted on van
+Heerden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said Milsom, "I don't think there's anything more I
+can tell you. What are you going to do with me?"
+
+"I'll take the responsibility of not executing the warrant," said
+McNorton. "You will accompany one of my men to his home to-night and you
+will be under police supervision."
+
+"That's no new experience," said Milsom, "there's only one piece of
+advice I want to give you."
+
+"And that is?" asked Beale.
+
+"Don't underrate van Heerden. You have no conception of his nerve. There
+isn't a man of us here," he said, "whose insurance rate wouldn't go up
+to ninety per cent. if van Heerden decided to get him. I don't profess
+that I can help you to explain his strange conduct to-day. I can only
+outline the psychology of it, but how and where he has hidden his code
+and what circumstances prevent its recovery, is known only to van
+Heerden."
+
+He nodded to the little group, and accompanied by McNorton left the
+room.
+
+"There goes a pretty bad man," said Kitson, "or I am no judge of
+character. He's an old lag, isn't he?"
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"Murder," he said laconically. "He lived after his time. He should have
+been a contemporary of the Borgias."
+
+"A poisoner!" shuddered one of the under-secretaries. "I remember the
+case. He killed his nephew and defended himself on the plea that the
+youth was a degenerate, as he undoubtedly was."
+
+"He might have got that defence past in America or France," said Beale,
+"but unfortunately there was a business end to the matter. He was the
+sole heir of his nephew's considerable fortune, and a jury from the
+Society of Eugenics would have convicted him on that."
+
+He looked at his watch and turned his eyes to Kitson.
+
+"I presume Miss Cresswell is bored and has retired for the night," he
+said.
+
+"I'll find out in a moment," said Kitson. "Did you speak to her?"
+
+Beale nodded, and his eyes twinkled.
+
+"Did you make any progress?"
+
+"I broke the sad news to her, if that's what you mean."
+
+"You told her she was married to you? Good heavens! What did she say?"
+
+"Well, she didn't faint, I don't think she's the fainting kind. She is
+cursed with a sense of humour, and refused even to take a tragic view."
+
+"That's bad," said Kitson, shaking his head. "A sense of humour is out
+of place in a divorce court, and that is where your little romance is
+going to end, my friend."
+
+"I am not so sure," said Beale calmly, and the other stared at him.
+
+"You have promised me," he began, with a note of acerbity in his voice.
+
+"And you have advised me," said Beale.
+
+Kitson choked down something which he was going to say, but which he
+evidently thought was better left unsaid.
+
+"Wait," he commanded, "I will find out whether Miss Cresswell," he
+emphasized the words, "has gone to bed."
+
+He passed through the door to Oliva's sitting-room and was gone a few
+minutes. When he came back Beale saw his troubled face, and ran forward
+to meet him.
+
+"She's not there," said Kitson.
+
+"Not in her room?"
+
+"Neither in the sitting-room nor the bedroom. I have rung for her maid.
+Oh, here you are."
+
+Prim Minnie came through the bedroom door.
+
+"Where is your mistress?"
+
+"I thought she was with you, sir."
+
+"What is this?" said Beale, stooped and picked up a white kid glove.
+"She surely hasn't gone out," he said in consternation.
+
+"That's not a lady's glove, sir," said the girl, "that is a
+gentleman's."
+
+It was a new glove, and turning it over he saw stamped inside the words:
+"Glebler, Rotterdam."
+
+"Has anybody been here?" he asked.
+
+"Not to my knowledge, sir. The young lady told me she did not want me
+any more to-night." The girl hesitated. It seemed a veritable betrayal
+of her mistress to disclose such a sordid matter as the search for a
+pawn ticket.
+
+Beale noticed the hesitation.
+
+"You must tell me everything, and tell me quickly," he said.
+
+"Well, sir," said the maid, "the lady came in to look for something she
+brought with her when she came here."
+
+"I remember!" cried Kitson, "she told me she had brought away something
+very curious from van Heerden's house and made me guess what it was.
+Something interrupted our talk--what was it?"
+
+"Well, sir," said the maid, resigned, "I won't tell you a lie, sir. It
+was a pawn ticket."
+
+"A pawn ticket!" cried Kitson and Beale in unison.
+
+"Are you sure?" asked the latter.
+
+"Absolutely sure, sir."
+
+"But she couldn't have brought a pawn ticket from van Heerden's house.
+What was it for?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir."
+
+"What was on the pawn ticket?" said Kitson impatiently. "What article
+had been pledged?"
+
+Again the girl hesitated. To betray her mistress was unpleasant. To
+betray herself--as she would if she confessed that she had most
+carefully and thoroughly read the voucher--was unthinkable.
+
+"You know what was on it," said Beale, in his best third degree manner,
+"now don't keep us waiting. What was it?"
+
+"A watch, sir."
+
+"How much was it pledged for?"
+
+"Ten shillings, sir."
+
+"Do you remember the name."
+
+"In a foreign name, sir--van Horden."
+
+"Van Heerden," said Beale quickly, "and at what pawnbrokers?"
+
+"Well, sir," said the girl, making a fight for her reputation, "I only
+glanced at the ticket and I only noticed----"
+
+"Yes, you did," interrupted Beale sharply, "you read every line of it.
+Where was it?"
+
+"Rosenblaum Bros., of Commercial Road," blurted the girl.
+
+"Any number?"
+
+"I didn't see the number."
+
+"You will find them in the telephone book," said Kitson. "What does it
+mean?"
+
+But Beale was half-way to Kitson's sitting-room, arriving there in time
+to meet McNorton who had handed over his charge to his subordinate.
+
+"I've found it!" cried Beale.
+
+"Found what?" asked Kitson.
+
+"The code!"
+
+"Where? How?" asked McNorton.
+
+"Unless I am altogether wrong the code is contained, either engraved on
+the case or written on a slip of paper enclosed within the case of a
+watch. Can't you see it all plainly now? Van Heerden neither trusted his
+memory nor his subordinates. He had his simple code written, as we shall
+find, upon thin paper enclosed in the case of a hunter watch, and this
+he pledged. A pawnbroker's is the safest of safe deposits. Searching for
+clues, suppose the police had detected his preparations, the pledged
+ticket might have been easily overlooked."
+
+Kitson was looking at him with an expression of amazed indignation.
+Here was a man who had lost his wife, and Kitson believed that this
+young detective loved the girl as few women are loved; but in the
+passion of the chase, in the production of a new problem, he was
+absorbed to the exclusion of all other considerations in the greater
+game.
+
+Yet he did Beale an injustice if he only knew, for the thought of
+Oliva's new peril ran through all his speculations, his rapid
+deductions, his lightning plans.
+
+"Miss Cresswell found the ticket and probably extracted it as a
+curiosity. These things are kept in little envelopes, aren't they,
+McNorton?"
+
+The police chief nodded.
+
+"That was it, then. She took it out and left the envelope behind, and
+van Heerden did not discover his loss until he went to find the voucher
+to give Milsom the code. Don't you remember? In the first place he said
+he couldn't give him the code until after ten o'clock, which is probably
+the hour the pawnbrokers open for business."
+
+McNorton nodded again.
+
+"Then do you remember that Milsom said that the code was not
+irredeemably lost and that van Heerden knew where it was. In default of
+finding the ticket he decided to burgle the pawnbroker's, and that
+burglary is going through to-night."
+
+"But he could have obtained a duplicate of the ticket," said McNorton.
+
+"How?" asked Beale quickly.
+
+"By going before a magistrate and swearing an affidavit."
+
+"In his own name," said Beale, "you see, he couldn't do that. It would
+mean walking into the lion's den. No, burglary was his only chance."
+
+"But what of Oliva?" said Kitson impatiently, "I tell you, Beale, I am
+not big enough or stoical enough to think outside of that girl's
+safety."
+
+Beale swung round at him.
+
+"You don't think I've forgotten that, do you?" he said in a low voice.
+"You don't think that has been out of my mind?" His face was tense and
+drawn. "I think, I believe that Oliva is safe," he said quietly. "I
+believe that Oliva and not any of us here will deliver van Heerden to
+justice."
+
+"Are you mad?" asked Kitson in astonishment.
+
+"I am very sane. Come here!"
+
+He gripped the old lawyer by the arm and led him back to the girl's
+room.
+
+"Look," he said, and pointed.
+
+"What do you mean, the bookshelf?"
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"Half an hour ago I gave Oliva a book," he said, "that book is no longer
+there."
+
+"But in the name of Heaven how can a book save her?" demanded the
+exasperated Kitson.
+
+Stanford Beale did not answer.
+
+"Yes, yes, she's safe. I know she's safe," he said. "If Oliva is the
+girl I think she is then I see van Heerden's finish."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+A CORN CHANDLER'S BILL
+
+
+The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a
+gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling,
+and Beale and McNorton alighted.
+
+It was a main street and was almost deserted. Beale looked up at the
+windows. They were dark. He knocked at the side-entrance of the shop,
+and presently the two men were joined by a policeman.
+
+"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made
+himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at
+Highgate."
+
+He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A
+nightfarer who had been in the shade on the opposite side of the street
+came across and volunteered information.
+
+He had seen another car drive up and a gentleman had alighted. He had
+opened the door with a key and gone in. There was nothing suspicious
+about him. He was "quite a gentleman, and was in evening-dress." The
+constable thought it was one of the partners of Rosenblaum in convivial
+and resplendent garb. He had been in the house ten minutes then had come
+out again, locking the door behind him, and had driven off just before
+Beale's car had arrived.
+
+It was not until half an hour later that an agitated little man brought
+by the police from Highgate admitted the two men.
+
+There was no need to make a long search. The moment the light was
+switched on in the shop Beale made his discovery. On the broad counter
+lay a sheet of paper and a little heap of silver coins. He swept the
+money aside and read:
+
+"For the redemption of one silver hunter, 10s. 6d."
+
+It was signed in the characteristic handwriting that Beale knew so well
+"Van Heerden, M.D."
+
+The two men looked at one another.
+
+"What do you make of that?" asked McNorton.
+
+Beale carried the paper to the light and examined it, and McNorton went
+on:
+
+"He's a pretty cool fellow. I suppose he had the money and the message
+all ready for our benefit."
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"On the contrary," he said, "this was done on the spur of the moment. A
+piece of bravado which occurred to him when he had the watch. Look at
+this paper. You can imagine him searching his pocket for a piece of
+waste paper and taking the first that came to his hand. It is written in
+ink with the pawnbroker's own pen. The inkwell is open," he lifted up
+the pen, "the nib is still wet," he said.
+
+McNorton took the paper from his hands.
+
+It was a bill from a corn-chandler's at Horsham, the type of bill that
+was sent in days of war economy which folded over and constituted its
+own envelope. It was addressed to "J. B. Harden, Esq." ("That was the
+_alias_ he used when he took the wine vaults at Paddington," explained
+McNorton) and had been posted about a week before. Attached to the
+bottom of the account, which was for £3 10s., was a little slip calling
+attention to the fact that "this account had probably been overlooked."
+
+Beale's finger traced the item for which the bill was rendered, and
+McNorton uttered an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Curious, isn't it?" said Beale, as he folded the paper and put it away
+in his pocket, "how these very clever men always make some trifling
+error which brings them to justice. I don't know how many great schemes
+I have seen brought to nothing through some such act of folly as this,
+some piece of theatrical bravado which benefited the criminal nothing at
+all."
+
+"Good gracious," said McNorton wonderingly, "of course, that's what he
+is going to do. I never thought of that. It is in the neighbourhood of
+Horsham we must look for him, and I think if we can get one of the
+Messrs. Billingham out of bed in a couple of hours' time we shall do a
+good night's work."
+
+They went outside and again questioned the policeman. He remembered the
+car turning round and going back the way it had come. It had probably
+taken one of the innumerable side-roads which lead from the main
+thoroughfare, and in this way they had missed it.
+
+"I want to go to the '_Megaphone_' office first," said Beale. "I have
+some good friends on that paper and I am curious to know how bad the
+markets are. The night cables from New York should be coming in by now."
+
+In his heart was a sickening fear which he dared not express. What would
+the morrow bring forth? If this one man's cupidity and hate should
+succeed in releasing the terror upon the world, what sort of a world
+would it leave? Through the windows of the car he could see the placid
+policemen patrolling the streets, caught a glimpse of other cars
+brilliantly illuminated bearing their laughing men and women back to
+homes, who were ignorant of the monstrous danger which threatened their
+security and life.
+
+He passed the façades of great commercial mansions which in a month's
+time might but serve to conceal the stark ruin within.
+
+To him it was a night of tremendous tragedy, and for the second time in
+his life in the numbness induced by the greater peril and the greater
+anxiety he failed to wince at the thought of the danger in which Oliva
+stood.
+
+Indeed, analysing his sensations she seemed to him on this occasion less
+a victim than a fellow-worker and he found a strange comfort in that
+thought of partnership.
+
+The _Megaphone_ buildings blazed with light when the car drew up to the
+door, messenger-boys were hurrying through the swing-doors, the two
+great elevators were running up and down without pause. The grey editor
+with a gruff voice threw over a bundle of flimsies.
+
+"Here are the market reports," he growled, "they are not very
+encouraging."
+
+Beale read them and whistled, and the editor eyed him keenly.
+
+"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked the detective. "Wheat at a
+shilling a pound already. God knows what it's going to be to-morrow!"
+
+"Any other news?" asked Beale.
+
+"We have asked Germany to explain why she has prohibited the export of
+wheat and to give us a reason for the stocks she holds and the steps she
+has taken during the past two months to accumulate reserves."
+
+"An ultimatum?"
+
+"Not exactly an ultimatum. There's nothing to go to war about. The
+Government has mobilized the fleet and the French Government has
+partially mobilized her army. The question is," he said, "would war ease
+the situation?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"The battle will not be fought in the field," he said, "it will be
+fought right here in London, in all your great towns, in Manchester,
+Coventry, Birmingham, Cardiff. It will be fought in New York and in a
+thousand townships between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and if the
+German scheme comes off we shall be beaten before a shot is fired."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked the editor, "why is everybody buying wheat
+so frantically? There is no shortage. The harvests in the United States
+and Canada are good."
+
+"There will be no harvests," said Beale solemnly; and the journalist
+gaped at him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE END OF VAN HEERDEN
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies
+beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared
+to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleasant travelling-companion. When a man
+takes a girl, against her will, from a pleasant suite at the best hotel
+in London, compels her at the peril of death to accompany him on a
+motor-car ride in the dead of the night, and when his offence is a
+duplication of one which had been committed less than a week before, he
+not unnaturally anticipates tears, supplications, or in the alternative
+a frigid and unapproachable silence.
+
+To his amazement Oliva was extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and
+even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he
+investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros.,
+and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had
+been taciturn and uncommunicative was in quite an amiable mood.
+
+"I used to think," she said, "that motor-car abductions were the
+invention of sensational writers, but you seem to make a practice of it.
+You are not very original, Dr. van Heerden. I think I've told you that
+before."
+
+He smiled in the darkness as the car sped smoothly through the deserted
+streets.
+
+"I must plead guilty to being rather unoriginal," he said, "but I
+promise you that this little adventure shall not end as did the last."
+
+"It can hardly do that," she laughed, "I can only be married once
+whilst Mr. Beale is alive."
+
+"I forgot you were married," he said suddenly, then after a pause, "I
+suppose you will divorce him?"
+
+"Why?" she asked innocently.
+
+"But you're not fond of that fellow, are you?"
+
+"Passionately," she said calmly, "he is my ideal."
+
+The reply took away his breath and certainly silenced him.
+
+"How is this adventure to end?" she demanded. "Are you going to maroon
+me on a desert island, or are you taking me to Germany?"
+
+"How did you know I am trying to get to Germany?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Beale thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he
+reckoned that he would catch you somewhere near the coast."
+
+"He did, did he?" said the other calmly. "I shall deny him that
+pleasure. I don't intend taking you to Germany. Indeed, it is not my
+intention to detain you any longer than is necessary."
+
+"For which I am truly grateful," she smiled, "but why detain me at all?"
+
+"That is a stupid question to ask when I am sure you have no doubt in
+your mind as to why it is necessary to keep you close to me until I have
+finished my work. I think I told you some time ago," he went on, "that I
+had a great scheme. The other day you called me a Hun, by which I
+suppose you meant that I was a German. It is perfectly true that I am a
+German and I am a patriotic German. To me even in these days of his
+degradation the Kaiser is still little less than a god."
+
+His voice quivered a little, and the girl was struck dumb with wonder
+that a man of such intelligence, of such a wide outlook, of such
+modernity, should hold to views so archaic.
+
+"Your country ruined Germany. You have sucked us dry. To say that I hate
+England and hate America--for you Anglo-Saxons are one in your soulless
+covetousness--is to express my feelings mildly."
+
+"But what is your scheme?" she asked.
+
+"Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that
+to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics.
+America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my
+country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he
+cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the
+Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."
+
+"But how?" she asked, bewildered.
+
+"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is
+stored in Germany."
+
+"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about
+harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's
+wheat comes from America and from Russia."
+
+"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the
+American wheat--there will be no American wheat."
+
+And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst
+out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English.
+The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating
+hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette
+against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled
+incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best
+she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work
+in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names
+of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.
+
+So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to
+counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to
+her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he
+carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she
+cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:
+
+"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"
+
+"What--what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you
+thanking God about?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing." She was her eager, animated self. "Tell me some
+more. It is a wonderful story. It is true, is it not?"
+
+"True?" he laughed harshly, "you shall see how true it is. You shall see
+the world lie at the feet of German science. To-morrow the word will go
+forth. Look!" He clicked on a little electric light and held out his
+hand. In his palm lay a silver watch.
+
+"I told you there was a code" (she was dimly conscious that he had
+spoken of a code but she had been so occupied by her own thoughts that
+she had not caught all that he had said). "That code was in this watch.
+Look!"
+
+He pressed a knob and the case flew open. Pasted to the inside of the
+case was a circular piece of paper covered with fine writing.
+
+"When you found that ticket you had the code in your hands," he
+chuckled; "if you or your friends had the sense to redeem that watch I
+could not have sent to-morrow the message of German liberation! See, it
+is very simple!" He pointed with his finger and held the watch half-way
+to the roof that the light might better reveal the wording. "This word
+means 'Proceed.' It will go to all my chief agents. They will transmit
+it by telegram to hundreds of centres. By Thursday morning great
+stretches of territory where the golden corn was waving so proudly
+to-day will be blackened wastes. By Saturday the world will confront its
+sublime catastrophe."
+
+"But why have you three words?" she asked huskily.
+
+"We Germans provide against all contingencies," he said, "we leave
+nothing to chance. We are not gamblers. We work on lines of scientific
+accuracy. The second word is to tell my agents to suspend operations
+until they hear from me. The third word means 'Abandon the scheme for
+this year'! We must work with the markets. A more favourable opportunity
+might occur--with so grand a conception it is necessary that we should
+obtain the maximum results for our labours."
+
+He snapped the case of the watch and put it back in his pocket, turned
+out the light and settled himself back with a sigh of content.
+
+"You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and
+to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an
+ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile
+mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my
+fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my
+intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless----" A
+thought struck him, and he frowned.
+
+"Unless----?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her
+assurance.
+
+"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to
+the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful
+fellow----"
+
+"You wouldn't?" she gasped.
+
+"Why not?" he said coolly. "I don't want you. Bridgers thinks that you
+are beautiful."
+
+"Is he a Hun, too?" she asked, and he jerked round toward her.
+
+"If Bridgers wants you he shall have you," he said harshly.
+
+She knew she had made a mistake. There was no sense in antagonizing him,
+the more especially so since she had not yet learnt all that she wanted
+to know.
+
+"I think your scheme is horrible," she said after awhile, "the wheat
+destruction scheme, I mean, not Bridgers. But it is a very great one."
+
+The man was susceptible to flattery, for he became genial again.
+
+"It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is
+the most colossal crime--I suppose they will call it a crime--that has
+ever been committed."
+
+"But how are you going to get your code word away? The telegraphs are in
+the hands of the Government and I think you will find it difficult even
+if you have a secret wireless."
+
+"Wireless, bah!" he said scornfully. "I never expected to send it by
+telegraph with or without wires. I have a much surer way, fräulein, as
+you will see."
+
+"But how will you escape?" she asked.
+
+"I shall leave England to-morrow, soon after daybreak," he replied,
+with assurance, "by aeroplane, a long-distance flying-machine will land
+on my Sussex farm which will have British markings--indeed, it is
+already in England, and I and my good Bridgers will pass your coast
+without trouble."
+
+He peered out of the window.
+
+"This is Horsham, I think," he said, as they swept through what appeared
+to the girl to be a square. "That little building on the left is the
+railway station. You will see the signal lamps in a moment. My farm is
+about five miles down the Shoreham Road."
+
+He was in an excellent temper as they passed through the old town and
+mounted the hill which leads to Shoreham, was politeness itself when the
+car had turned off the main road and had bumped over cart tracks to the
+door of a large building.
+
+"This is your last escapade, Miss Cresswell, or Mrs. Beale I suppose I
+should call you," he said jovially, as he pushed her before him into a
+room where supper had been laid for two. "You see, you were not
+expected, but you shall have Bridgers'. It will be daylight in two
+hours," he said inconsequently, "you must have some wine."
+
+She shook her head with a smile, and he laughed as if the implied
+suspicion of her refusal was the best joke in the world.
+
+"Nein, nein, little friend," he said, "I shall not doctor you again. My
+days of doctoring have passed."
+
+She had expected to find the farm in occupation, but apparently they
+were the only people there. The doctor had opened the door himself with
+a key, and no servant had appeared, nor apparently did he expect them to
+appear. She learnt afterwards that there were two farm servants, an old
+man and his wife, who lived in a cottage on the estate and came in the
+daytime to do the housework and prepare a cold supper against their
+master's coming.
+
+Bridgers did not make his appearance. Apparently he was staying with his
+car. About three o'clock in the morning, when the first streaks of grey
+were showing in the sky, van Heerden rose to go in search of his
+assistant. Until then he had not ceased to talk of himself, of his
+scheme, of his great plan, of his early struggles, of his difficulties
+in persuading members of his Government to afford him the assistance he
+required. As he turned to the door she checked him with a word:
+
+"I am immensely interested," she said, "but still, you have not told me
+how you intend to send your message."
+
+"It is simple," he said, and beckoned to her.
+
+They passed out of the house into the chill sweet dawn, made a
+half-circuit of the farm and came to a courtyard surrounded on three
+sides by low buildings. He opened a door to reveal another door covered
+with wire netting.
+
+"Behold!" he laughed.
+
+"Pigeons!" said the girl.
+
+The dark interior of the shed was aflicker with white wings.
+
+"Pigeons!" repeated van Heerden, closing the door, "and every one knows
+his way back to Germany. It has been a labour of love collecting them.
+And they are all British," he said with a laugh. "There I will give the
+British credit, they know more about pigeons than we Germans and have
+used them more in the war."
+
+"But suppose your pigeon is shot down or falls by the way?" she asked,
+as they walked slowly back to the house.
+
+"I shall send fifty," replied van Heerden calmly; "each will carry the
+same message and some at least will get home."
+
+Back in the dining-room he cleared the remains of the supper from the
+table and went out of the room for a few minutes, returning with a small
+pad of paper, and she saw from the delicacy with which he handed each
+sheet that it was of the thinnest texture. Between each page he placed a
+carbon and began to write, printing the characters. There was only one
+word on each tiny sheet. When this was written he detached the leaves,
+putting them aside and using his watch as a paper-weight, and wrote
+another batch.
+
+She watched him, fascinated, until he showed signs that he had
+completed his task. Then she lifted the little valise which she had at
+her side, put it on her knees, opened it and took out a book. It must
+have been instinct which made him raise his eyes to her.
+
+"What have you got there?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Oh, a book," she said, with an attempt at carelessness.
+
+"But why have you got it out? You are not reading."
+
+He leant over and snatched it from her and looked at the title.
+
+"'A Friend in Need,'" he read. "By Stanford Beale--by Stanford Beale,"
+he repeated, frowning. "I didn't know your husband wrote books?"
+
+She made no reply. He turned back the cover and read the title page.
+
+"But this is 'Smiles's Self Help,'" he said.
+
+"It's the same thing," she replied.
+
+He turned another page or two, then stopped, for he had come to a place
+where the centre of the book had been cut right out. The leaves had been
+glued together to disguise this fact, and what was apparently a book was
+in reality a small box.
+
+"What was in there?" he asked, springing to his feet.
+
+"This," she said, "don't move, Dr. van Heerden!"
+
+The little hand which held the Browning was firm and did not quiver.
+
+"I don't think you are going to send your pigeons off this morning,
+doctor," she said. "Stand back from the table." She leant over and
+seized the little heap of papers and the watch. "I am going to shoot
+you," she said steadily, "if you refuse to do as I tell you; because if
+I don't shoot you, you will kill me."
+
+His face had grown old and grey in the space of a few seconds. The white
+hands he raised were shaking. He tried to speak but only a hoarse murmur
+came. Then his face went blank. He stared at the pistol, then stretched
+out his hands slowly toward it.
+
+"Stand back!" she cried.
+
+He jumped at her, and she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, and
+the next minute she was struggling in his arms. The man was hysterical
+with fear and relief and was giggling and cursing in the same breath.
+He wrenched the pistol from her hand and threw it on the table.
+
+"You fool! You fool!" he shouted, "the safety-catch! You didn't put it
+down!"
+
+She could have wept with anger and mortification. Beale had put the
+catch of the weapon at safety, not realizing that she did not understand
+the mechanism of it, and van Heerden in one lightning glance had seen
+his advantage.
+
+"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall
+suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your
+husband something which he will not touch!"
+
+He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed
+"Bridgers!"
+
+Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.
+
+"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It
+is----"
+
+"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"
+
+He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these
+was Beale.
+
+"It's no use your shouting for Bridgers because Bridgers is on the way
+to the jug," said McNorton. "I have a warrant for you, van Heerden."
+
+The doctor turned with a howl of rage, snatched up the pistol which lay
+on the table, and thumbed down the safety-catch.
+
+Beale and McNorton fired together, so that it seemed like a single shot
+that thundered through the room. Van Heerden slid forward, and fell
+sprawling across the table.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the Friday morning, and Beale stepped briskly through the
+vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton, and declining the elevator went up the
+stairs two at a time. He burst into the room where Kitson and the girl
+were standing by the window.
+
+"Wheat prices are tumbling down," he said, "the message worked."
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!" said Kitson. "Then van Heerden's code message
+telling his gang to stop operations reached its destination!"
+
+"Its destinations," corrected Beale cheerfully. "I released thirty
+pigeons with the magic word. The agents have been arrested," he said;
+"we notified the Government authorities, and there was a sheriff or a
+policeman in every post office when the code word came through--van
+Heerden's agents saw some curious telegraph messengers yesterday."
+
+Kitson nodded and turned away.
+
+"What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, with a light in her
+eyes. "You must feel quite lost without this great quest of yours."
+
+"There are others," said Stanford Beale.
+
+"When do you return to America?" she asked.
+
+He fenced the question, but she brought him back to it.
+
+"I have a great deal of business to do in London before I go," he said.
+
+"Like what?" she asked.
+
+"Well," he hesitated, "I have some legal business."
+
+"Are you suing somebody?" she asked, wilfully dense.
+
+He rubbed his head in perplexity.
+
+"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't exactly know what I've got to
+do or what sort of figure I shall cut. I have never been in the Divorce
+Court before."
+
+"Divorce Court?" she said, puzzled, "are you giving evidence? Of course
+I know detectives do that sort of thing. I have read about it in the
+newspapers. It must be rather horrid, but you are such a clever
+detective--oh, by the way you never told me how you found me."
+
+"It was a very simple matter," he said, relieved to change the subject,
+"van Heerden, by one of those curious lapses which the best of criminals
+make, left a message at the pawnbroker's which was written on the back
+of an account for pigeon food, sent to him from a Horsham tradesman. I
+knew he would not try to dispatch his message by the ordinary courses
+and I suspected all along that he had established a pigeon-post. The
+bill gave me all the information I wanted. It took us a long time to
+find the tradesman, but once we had discovered him he directed us to the
+farm. We took along a couple of local policemen and arrested Bridgers in
+the garage."
+
+She shivered.
+
+"It was horrible, wasn't it?" she said.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"It was rather dreadful, but it might have been very much worse," he
+added philosophically.
+
+"But how wonderful of you to switch yourself from the crime of that
+enthralling character to a commonplace divorce suit."
+
+"This isn't commonplace," he said, "it is rather a curious story."
+
+"Do tell me." She made a place for him on the window-ledge and he sat
+down beside her.
+
+"It is a story of a mistake and a blunder," he said. "The plaintiff, a
+very worthy young man, passably good looking, was a man of my
+profession, a detective engaged in protecting the interests of a young
+and beautiful girl."
+
+"I suppose you have to say she's young and beautiful or the story
+wouldn't be interesting," she said.
+
+"It is not necessary to lie in this case," he said, "she is certainly
+young and undoubtedly beautiful. She has the loveliest eyes----"
+
+"Go on," she said hastily.
+
+"The detective," he resumed, "hereinafter called the petitioner,
+desiring to protect the innocent maiden from the machinations of a
+fortune-hunting gentleman no longer with us, contracted as he thought a
+fraudulent marriage with this unfortunate girl, believing thereby he
+could choke off the villain who was pursuing her."
+
+"But why did the unfortunate girl marry him, even fraudulently?"
+
+"Because," said Beale, "the villain of the piece had drugged her and she
+didn't know what she was doing. After the marriage," he went on, "he
+discovered that so far from being illegal it was good in law and he had
+bound this wretched female."
+
+"Please don't be rude," she said.
+
+"He had bound this wretched female to him for life. Being a perfect
+gentleman, born of poor but American parents, he takes the first
+opportunity of freeing her."
+
+"And himself," she murmured.
+
+"As to the poor misguided lad," he said firmly, "you need feel no
+sympathy. He had behaved disgracefully."
+
+"How?" she asked.
+
+"Well, you see, he had already fallen in love with her and that made his
+offence all the greater. If you go red I cannot tell you this story,
+because it embarrasses me."
+
+"I haven't gone red," she denied indignantly. "So what are you--what is
+he going to do?"
+
+Beale shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He is going to work for a divorce."
+
+"But why?" she demanded. "What has she done?"
+
+He looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"What do you mean?" he stammered.
+
+"Well"--she shrugged her shoulders slightly and smiled in his face--"it
+seems to me that it is nothing to do with him. It is the wretched female
+who should sue for a divorce, not the handsome detective--do you feel
+faint?"
+
+"No," he said hoarsely.
+
+"Don't you agree with me?"
+
+"I agree with you," said the incoherent Beale. "But suppose her guardian
+takes the necessary steps?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"The guardian can do nothing unless the wretched female instructs him,"
+she said. "Does it occur to you that even the best of drugs wear off in
+time and that there is a possibility that the lady was not as
+unconscious of the ceremony as she pretends? Of course," she said
+hurriedly, "she did not realize that it had actually happened, and until
+she was told by Apollo from the Central Office--that's what you call
+Scotland Yard in New York, isn't it?--that the ceremony had actually
+occurred she was under the impression that it was a beautiful
+dream--when I say beautiful," she amended, in some hurry, "I mean not
+unpleasant."
+
+"Then what am I to do?" said the helpless Beale.
+
+"Wait till I divorce you," said Oliva, and turned her head hurriedly, so
+that Beale only kissed the tip of her ear.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Rust, by Edgar Wallace
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Rust, by Edgar Wallace
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Green Rust
+
+Author: Edgar Wallace
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24929]
+[Last Updated: September 10, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN RUST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>THE GREEN RUST</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>EDGAR WALLACE</h2>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>WARD, LOCK &amp; CO., LIMITED</h3>
+
+<p class="center">LONDON AND MELBOURNE</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">MADE IN ENGLAND<br />
+Printed in Great Britain by Butler &amp; Tanner Ltd., Frome and London</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>THE GREEN RUST</h1>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Novels by</i><br />EDGAR WALLACE</p>
+
+<p><i>published by</i><br />
+WARD, LOCK AND CO., LTD.</p>
+
+<p><i>The "Sanders" Stories</i></p>
+
+<p>SANDERS OF THE RIVER<br />BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER<br />BONES<br />
+LIEUTENANT BONES<br />SANDI, THE KING-MAKER<br />THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER<br />
+THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE</p>
+
+<p><i>Mystery Stories</i></p>
+
+<p>THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY<br />THE DARK EYES OF LONDON<br />BLUE HAND<br />
+MR. JUSTICE MAXELL<br />THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA<br />THE GREEN RUST<br />
+THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG<br />THE SECRET HOUSE</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;CHAP.</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Passing of John Millinborn</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Drunken Mr. Beale</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Punsonby's Discharge an Employee</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Letters that were not There</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Man with the Big Head</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Mr. Scobbs of Red Horse Valley</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Plain Words from Mr. Beale</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Crime of the Grand Alliance</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">A Crime against the World</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">A Fruitless Search</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The House near Staines</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Introducing Parson Homo</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">At Deans Folly</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Mr. Beale Suggests Marriage</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Good Herr Stardt</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Pawn Ticket</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Jew of Cracow</span></li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Bridgers Breaks Loose</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Oliva is Willing</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Marriage</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Beale Sees White</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Hilda Glaum Leads the Way</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">At the Doctor's Flat</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Green Rust Factory</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Last Man at the Bench</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Secret of the Green Rust</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">A Scheme to Starve the World</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Coming of Dr. Milsom</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Lost Code</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The Watch</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">A Cornchandler's Bill</span></li>
+<li><span class="mono">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">The End of Van Heerden</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN</h3>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether there's a law that stops my doing this, Jim; but
+if there is, you've got to get round it. You're a lawyer and you know
+the game. You're my pal and the best pal I've had, Jim, and you'll do it
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>The dying man looked up into the old eyes that were watching him with
+such compassion and read their acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>No greater difference could be imagined than existed between the man on
+the bed and the slim neat figure who sat by his side. John Millinborn,
+broad-shouldered, big-featured, a veritable giant in frame and even in
+his last days suggesting the enormous strength which had been his in his
+prime, had been an outdoor man, a man of large voice and large capable
+hands; James Kitson had been a student from his youth up and had spent
+his manhood in musty offices, stuffy courts, surrounded by crackling
+briefs and calf-bound law-books.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, between these two men, the millionaire ship-builder and the
+successful solicitor, utterly different in their tastes and their modes
+of life, was a friendship deep and true. Strange that death should take
+the strong and leave the weak; so thought James Kitson as he watched his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do what can be done, John. You leave a great responsibility upon
+the girl&mdash;a million and a half of money."</p>
+
+<p>The sick man nodded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p><p>"I get rid of a greater one, Jim. When my father died he left a hundred
+thousand between us, my sister and I. I've turned my share into a
+million, but that is by the way. Because she was a fairly rich girl and
+a wilful girl, Jim, she broke her heart. Because they knew she had the
+money the worst men were attracted to her&mdash;and she chose the worst of
+the worst!"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped speaking to get his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"She married a plausible villain who ruined her&mdash;spent every sou and
+left her with a mountain of debt and a month-old baby. Poor Grace died
+and he married again. I tried to get the baby, but he held it as a
+hostage. I could never trace the child after it was two years old. It
+was only a month ago I learnt the reason. The man was an international
+swindler and was wanted by the police. He was arrested in Paris and
+charged in his true name&mdash;the name he had married in was false. When he
+came out of prison he took his own name&mdash;and of course the child's name
+changed, too."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You want me to&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get the will proved and begin your search for Oliva Pr&eacute;deaux. There is
+no such person. The girl's name you know, and I have told you where she
+is living. You'll find nobody who knows Oliva Pr&eacute;deaux&mdash;her father
+disappeared when she was six&mdash;he's probably dead, and her stepmother
+brought her up without knowing her relationship to me&mdash;then she died and
+the girl has been working ever since she was fifteen."</p>
+
+<p>"She is not to be found?"</p>
+
+<p>"Until she is married. Watch her, Jim, spend all the money you
+wish&mdash;don't influence her unless you see she is getting the wrong kind
+of man...."</p>
+
+<p>His voice, which had grown to something of the old strength, suddenly
+dropped and the great head rolled sideways on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson rose and crossed to the door. It opened upon a spacious
+sitting-room, through the big open windows of which could be seen the
+broad acres of the Sussex Weald.</p>
+
+<p>A man was sitting in the window-seat, chin in hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> looking across to
+the chequered fields on the slope of the downs. He was a man of thirty,
+with a pointed beard, and he rose as the lawyer stepped quickly into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything wrong?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he has fainted&mdash;will you go to him, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man passed swiftly and noiselessly to the bedside and made a
+brief examination. From a shelf near the head of the bed he took a
+hypodermic syringe and filled it from a small bottle. Baring the
+patient's side he slowly injected the drug. He stood for a moment
+looking down at the unconscious man, then came back to the big hall
+where James Kitson was waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is difficult to form a judgment," he said quietly, "his heart is all
+gone to pieces. Has he a family doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so far as I know&mdash;he hated doctors, and has never been ill in his
+life. I wonder he tolerated you."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't help himself. He was taken ill in the train on the way to
+this place and I happened to be a fellow-passenger. He asked me to bring
+him here and I have been here ever since. It is strange," he added,
+"that so rich a man as Mr. Millinborn had no servant travelling with him
+and should live practically alone in this&mdash;well, it is little better
+than a cottage."</p>
+
+<p>Despite his anxiety, James Kitson smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"He is the type of man who hates ostentation. I doubt if he has ever
+spent a thousand a year on himself all his life&mdash;do you think it is wise
+to leave him?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor spread out his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I can do nothing. He refused to allow me to send for a specialist and I
+think he was right. Nothing can be done for him. Still&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He walked back to the bedside, and the lawyer came behind him. John
+Millinborn seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, and after an examination by
+the doctor the two men walked back to the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"The excitement has been rather much for him. I suppose he has been
+making his will?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p><p>"Yes," said Kitson shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"I gathered as much when I saw you bring the gardener and the cook in to
+witness a document," said Dr. van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>He tapped his teeth with the tip of his fingers&mdash;a nervous trick of his.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had some strychnine," he said suddenly. "I ought to have some
+by me&mdash;in case."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you send a servant&mdash;or I'll go," said Kitson. "Is it procurable
+in the village?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to go," he demurred. "I have sent the car to
+Eastbourne to get a few things I cannot buy here. It's a stiff walk to
+the village and yet I doubt whether the chemist would supply the
+quantity I require to a servant, even with my prescription&mdash;you see," he
+smiled, "I am a stranger here."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go with pleasure&mdash;the walk will do me good," said the lawyer
+energetically. "If there is anything we can do to prolong my poor
+friend's life&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor sat at the table and wrote his prescription and handed it to
+the other with an apology.</p>
+
+<p>Hill Lodge, John Millinborn's big cottage, stood on the crest of a hill,
+and the way to the village was steep and long, for Alfronston lay nearly
+a mile away. Half-way down the slope the path ran through a plantation
+of young ash. Here John Millinborn had preserved a few pheasants in the
+early days of his occupancy of the Lodge on the hill. As Kitson entered
+one side of the plantation he heard a rustling noise, as though somebody
+were moving through the undergrowth. It was too heavy a noise for a
+bolting rabbit or a startled bird to make, and he peered into the thick
+foliage. He was a little nearsighted, and at first he did not see the
+cause of the commotion. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I'm trespassing," said a husky voice, and a man stepped out
+toward him.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger carried himself with a certain jauntiness, and he had need
+of what assistance artifice could lend him, for he was singularly
+unprepossessing. He was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> man who might as well have been sixty as
+fifty. His clothes soiled, torn and greasy, were of good cut. The shirt
+was filthy, but it was attached to a frayed collar, and the crumpled
+cravat was ornamented with a cameo pin.</p>
+
+<p>But it was the face which attracted Kitson's attention. There was
+something inherently evil in that puffed face, in the dull eyes that
+blinked under the thick black eyebrows. The lips, full and loose, parted
+in a smile as the lawyer stepped back to avoid contact with the
+unsavoury visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I'm trespassing&mdash;good gad! Me trespassing&mdash;funny, very
+funny!" He indulged in a hoarse wheezy laugh and broke suddenly into a
+torrent of the foulest language that this hardened lawyer had ever
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, pardon," he said, stopping as suddenly. "Man of the world, eh?
+You'll understand that when a gentleman has grievances...." He fumbled
+in his waistcoat-pocket and found a black-rimmed monocle and inserted it
+in his eye. There was an obscenity in the appearance of this foul wreck
+of a man which made the lawyer feel physically sick.</p>
+
+<p>"Trespassing, by gad!" He went back to his first conceit and his voice
+rasped with malignity. "Gad! If I had my way with people! I'd slit their
+throats, I would, sir. I'd stick pins in their eyes&mdash;red-hot pins. I'd
+boil them alive&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto the lawyer had not spoken, but now his repulsion got the better
+of his usually equable temper.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?" he asked sternly. "You're on private
+property&mdash;take your beastliness elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>The man glared at him and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Trespassing!" he sneered. "Trespassing! Very good&mdash;your servant, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>He swept his derby hat from his head (the lawyer saw that he was bald),
+and turning, strutted back through the plantation the way he had come.
+It was not the way out and Kitson was half-inclined to follow and see
+the man off the estate. Then he remembered the urgency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of his errand
+and continued his journey to the village. On his way back he looked
+about, but there was no trace of the unpleasant intruder. Who was he? he
+wondered. Some broken derelict with nothing but the memory of former
+vain splendours and the rags of old fineries, nursing a dear hatred for
+some more fortunate fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly an hour had passed before he again panted up to the levelled
+shelf on which the cottage stood.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was sitting at the window as Kitson passed.</p>
+
+<p>"How is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"About the same. He had one paroxysm. Is that the strychnine? I can't
+tell you how much obliged I am to you."</p>
+
+<p>He took the small packet and placed it on the window-ledge and Mr.
+Kitson passed into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, doctor, what do you think of his chance?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Honestly, I do not think he will recover consciousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer was shocked. The tragic suddenness of it all stunned him. He
+had thought vaguely that days, even weeks, might pass before the end
+came.</p>
+
+<p>"Not recover consciousness?" he repeated in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively he was drawn to the room where his friend lay and the
+doctor followed him.</p>
+
+<p>John Millinborn lay on his back, his eyes closed, his face a ghastly
+grey. His big hands were clutching at his throat, his shirt was torn
+open at the breast. The two windows, one at each end of the room, were
+wide, and a gentle breeze blew the casement curtains. The lawyer
+stooped, his eyes moist, and laid his hand upon the burning forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"John, John," he murmured, and turned away, blinded with tears.</p>
+
+<p>He wiped his face with a pocket-handkerchief and walked to the window,
+staring out at the serene loveliness of the scene. Over the weald a
+great aeroplane droned to the sea. The green downs were dappled white
+with grazing flocks, and beneath the windows the ordered beds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> blazed
+and flamed with flowers, crimson and gold and white.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there the man he had met in the plantation came to his mind
+and he was half-inclined to speak to the doctor of the incident. But he
+was in no mood for the description and the speculation which would
+follow. Restlessly he paced into the bedroom. The sick man had not moved
+and again the lawyer returned. He thought of the girl, that girl whose
+name and relationship with John Millinborn he alone knew. What use would
+she make of the millions which, all unknown to her, she would soon
+inherit? What&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Jim, Jim!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>It was John Millinborn's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick&mdash;come...."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had leapt into the room and made his way to the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Millinborn was sitting up, and as the lawyer moved swiftly in the
+doctor's tracks he saw his wide eyes staring.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim, he has...."</p>
+
+<p>His head dropped forward on his breast and the doctor lowered him slowly
+to the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, John? Speak to me, old man...."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid there is nothing to be done," said the doctor as he drew up
+the bedclothes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dead?" whispered the lawyer fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned the other into the big room and, after a glance at the
+motionless figure, Kitson followed.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something very strange&mdash;who is that?"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed through the open window at the clumsy figure of a man who was
+blundering wildly down the slope which led to the plantation.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson recognized the man immediately. It was the uninvited visitor whom
+he had met in the plantation. But there was something in the haste of
+the shabby man, a hint of terror in the wide-thrown arms, that made the
+lawyer forget his tragic environment.</p>
+
+<p>"Where has he been?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p><p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's face was white and drawn as though he, too, sensed some
+horror in that frantic flight.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson walked back to the room where the dying man lay, but was frozen
+stiff upon the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor&mdash;doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor followed the eyes of the other. Something was dripping from
+the bed to the floor&mdash;something red and horrible. Kitson set his teeth
+and, stepping to the bedside, pulled down the covers.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back with a cry, for from the side of John Millinborn
+protruded the ivory handle of a knife.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DRUNKEN MR. BEALE</h3>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden's surgery occupied one of the four shops which formed
+the ground floor of the Krooman Chambers. This edifice had been erected
+by a wealthy philanthropist to provide small model flats for the
+professional classes who needed limited accommodation and a good address
+(they were in the vicinity of Oxford Street) at a moderate rental. Like
+many philanthropists, the owner had wearied of his hobby and had sold
+the block to a syndicate, whose management on more occasions than one
+had been the subject of police inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>They had then fallen into the hands of an intelligent woman, who had
+turned out the undesirable tenants, furnished the flats plainly, but
+comfortably, and had let them to tenants who might be described as
+solvent, but honest. Krooman Chambers had gradually rehabilitated itself
+in the eyes of the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden had had his surgery in the building for six years.
+During the war he was temporarily under suspicion for sympathies with
+the enemy, but no proof<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> was adduced of his enmity and, though he had
+undoubtedly been born on the wrong side of the Border at Cranenburg,
+which is the Prussian frontier station on the Rotterdam-Cologne line,
+his name was undoubtedly van Heerden, which was Dutch. Change the "van"
+to "von," said the carping critics, and he was a Hun, and undoubtedly
+Germany was full of von Heerens and von Heerdens.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor lived down criticism, lived down suspicion, and got together
+a remunerative practice. He had the largest flat in the building, one
+room of which was fitted up as a laboratory, for he had a passion for
+research. The mysterious murder of John Millinborn had given him a
+certain advertisement which had not been without its advantages. The
+fact that he had been in attendance on the millionaire had brought him a
+larger fame.</p>
+
+<p>His theories as to how the murder had been committed by some one who had
+got through the open window whilst the two men were out of the room had
+been generally accepted, for the police had found footmarks on the
+flowerbeds, over which the murderer must have passed. They had not,
+however, traced the seedy-looking personage whom Mr. Kitson had seen.
+This person had disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Three months after the murder the doctor stood on the steps of the broad
+entrance-hall which led to the flats, watching the stream of pedestrians
+passing. It was six o'clock in the evening and the streets were alive
+with shop-girls and workers on their way home from business.</p>
+
+<p>He smoked a cigarette and his interest was, perhaps, more apparent than
+real. He had attended his last surgery case and the door of the "shop,"
+with its sage-green windows, had been locked for the night.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes wandered idly to the Oxford Street end of the thoroughfare, and
+suddenly he started. A girl was walking toward him. At this hour there
+was very little wheeled traffic, for Lattice Street is almost a
+cul-de-sac, and she had taken the middle of the road. She was dressed
+with that effective neatness which brings the wealthy and the work-girl
+to a baffling level, in a blue serge costume of severe cut; a plain
+white linen coat-collar and a small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> hat, which covered, but did not
+hide, a mass of hair which, against the slanting sunlight at her back,
+lent the illusion of a golden nimbus about her head.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes were deep-set and wise with the wisdom which is found alike in
+those who have suffered and those who have watched suffering. The nose
+was straight, the lips scarlet and full. You might catalogue every
+feature of Oliva Cresswell and yet arrive at no satisfactory explanation
+for her charm.</p>
+
+<p>Not in the clear ivory pallor of complexion did her charm lie. Nor in
+the trim figure with its promising lines, nor in the poise of head nor
+pride of carriage, nor in the ready laughter that came to those quiet
+eyes. In no one particular quality of attraction did she excel. Rather
+was her charm the charm of the perfect agglomeration of all those
+characteristics which men find alluring and challenging.</p>
+
+<p>She raised her hand with a free unaffected gesture, and greeted the
+doctor with a flashing smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss Cresswell, I haven't seen you for quite a long time."</p>
+
+<p>"Two days," she said solemnly, "but I suppose doctors who know all the
+secrets of nature have some very special drug to sustain them in trials
+like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be unkind to the profession," he laughed, "and don't be
+sarcastic, to one so young. By the way, I have never asked you did you
+get your flat changed?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head and frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Millit says she cannot move me."</p>
+
+<p>"Abominable," he said, and was annoyed. "Did you tell her about Beale?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"I said to her, says I," she had a trick of mimicry and dropped easily
+into the southern English accent, "'Miss Millit, are you aware that the
+gentleman who lives opposite to me has been, to my knowledge,
+consistently drunk for two months&mdash;ever since he came to live at
+Kroomans?' 'Does he annoy you?' says she. 'Drunken people always annoy
+me,' says I. 'Mr. Beale arrives home every evening in a condition which
+I can only describe as deplorable.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p><p>"What did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl made a little grimace and became serious.</p>
+
+<p>"She said if he did not speak to me or interfere with me or frighten me
+it was none of my business, or something to that effect." She laughed
+helplessly. "Really, the flat is so wonderful and so cheap that one
+cannot afford to get out&mdash;you don't know how grateful I am to you,
+doctor, for having got diggings here at all&mdash;Miss Millit isn't keen on
+single young ladies."</p>
+
+<p>She sniffed and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you laugh?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking how queerly you and I met."</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances of their meeting had indeed been curious. She was
+employed as a cashier at one of the great West End stores. He had made
+some sort of purchase and made payment in a five-pound note which had
+proved to be counterfeit. It was a sad moment for the girl when the
+forgery was discovered, for she had to make up the loss from her own
+pocket and that was no small matter.</p>
+
+<p>Then the miracle had happened. The doctor had arrived full of apologies,
+had presented his card and explained. The note was one which he had been
+keeping as a curiosity. It has been passed on him and was such an
+excellent specimen that he intended having it framed but it had got
+mixed up with his other money.</p>
+
+<p>"You started by being the villain of the piece and ended by being my
+good fairy," she said. "I should never have known there was a vacancy
+here but for you. I should not have been admitted by the proper Miss
+Millit but for the terror of your name."</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her little hand lightly on his shoulder. It was a gesture of
+good-comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>She half-turned to go when an angry exclamation held her.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Oh, I see&mdash;No. 4!"</p>
+
+<p>She drew a little closer to the doctor's side and watched with narrowing
+lids the approaching figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does he do it&mdash;oh, why does he do it?" she demanded impatiently.
+"How can a man be so weak, so wretchedly weak? There's nothing justifies
+that!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p><p>"That" was apparently trying to walk the opposite kerb as though it
+were a tight-rope. Save for a certain disorder of attire, a protruding
+necktie and a muddy hat, he was respectable enough. He was young and,
+under other conditions, passably good looking. But with his fair hair
+streaming over his forehead and his hat at the back of his head he
+lacked fascination. His attempt, aided by a walking-stick used as a
+balancing-pole, to keep his equilibrium on six inches of kerbing, might
+have been funny to a less sensitive soul than Oliva's.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped, recovered himself with a little whoop, slipped again, and
+finally gave up the attempt, crossing the road to his home.</p>
+
+<p>He recognized the doctor with a flourish of his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious weather, my Escu-escu-lapius," he said, with a little slur in
+his voice but a merry smile in his eye; "simply wonderful weather for
+bacteria trypanosomes (got it) an' all the jolly little microbes."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at the doctor blandly, ignoring the other's significant glance
+at the girl, who had drawn back so that she might not find herself
+included in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm goin' to leave you, doctor," he went on, "goin' top floor, away
+from the evil smells of science an' fatal lure of beauty. Top floor
+jolly stiff climb when a fellow's all lit up like the Hotel
+Doodledum&mdash;per arduis ad astra&mdash;through labour to the stars&mdash;fine motto.
+Flying Corps' motto&mdash;my motto. Goo' night!"</p>
+
+<p>Off came his hat again and he staggered up the broad stone stairs and
+disappeared round a turn. Later they heard his door slam.</p>
+
+<p>"Awful&mdash;and yet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet?" echoed the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he was funny. I nearly laughed. But how terrible! He's so
+young and he has had a decent education."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she took leave of the doctor and made her way upstairs. Three
+doors opened from the landing. Numbers 4, 6 and 8.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced a little apprehensively at No. 4 as she passed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> but there
+was no sound or sign of the reveller, and she passed into No. 6 and
+closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>The accommodation consisted of two rooms, a bed-and a sitting-room, a
+bath-room and a tiny kitchen. The rent was remarkably low, less than a
+quarter of her weekly earnings, and she managed to live comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>She lit the gas-stove and put on the kettle and began to lay the table.
+There was a "tin of something" in the diminutive pantry, a small loaf
+and a jug of milk, a tomato or two and a bottle of dressing&mdash;the high
+tea to which she sat down (a little flushed of the face and quite happy)
+was seasoned with content. She thought of the doctor and accounted
+herself lucky to have so good a friend. He was so sensible, there was no
+"nonsense" about him. He never tried to hold her hand as the stupid
+buyers did, nor make clumsy attempts to kiss her as one of the partners
+had done.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was different from them all. She could not imagine him
+sitting by the side of a girl in a bus pressing her foot with his, or
+accosting her in the street with a "Haven't we met before?"</p>
+
+<p>She ate her meal slowly, reading the evening newspaper and dreaming at
+intervals. It was dusk when she had finished and she switched on the
+electric light. There was a shilling-in-the-slot meter in the bath-room
+that acted eccentrically. Sometimes one shilling would supply light for
+a week, at other times after two days the lights would flicker
+spasmodically and expire.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered that it was a perilous long time since she had bribed the
+meter and searched her purse for a shilling. She found that she had
+half-crowns, florins and sixpences, but she had no shillings. This, of
+course, is the chronic condition of all users of the slot-meters, and
+she accepted the discovery with the calm of the fatalist. She
+considered. Should she go out and get change from the obliging
+tobacconist at the corner or should she take a chance?</p>
+
+<p>"If I don't go out you will," she said addressing the light, and it
+winked ominously.</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door and stepped into the passage, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> as she did so the
+lights behind her went out. There was one small lamp on the landing, a
+plutocratic affair independent of shilling meters. She closed the door
+behind her and walked to the head of the stairs. As she passed No. 4,
+she noted the door was ajar and she stopped. She did not wish to risk
+meeting the drunkard, and she turned back.</p>
+
+<p>Then she remembered the doctor, he lived in No. 8. Usually when he was
+at home there was a light in his hall which showed through the fanlight.
+Now, however, the place was in darkness. She saw a card on the door and
+walking closer she read it in the dim light.</p>
+
+<table summary="Back at 12. Wait.">
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="center"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span class="smcap">Back at 12. &nbsp; &nbsp; Wait.</span> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>He was out and was evidently expecting a caller. So there was nothing
+for it but to risk meeting the exuberant Mr. Beale. She flew down the
+stairs and gained the street with a feeling of relief.</p>
+
+<p>The obliging tobacconist, who was loquacious on the subject of Germans
+and Germany, detained her until her stock of patience was exhausted; but
+at last she made her escape. Half-way across the street she saw the
+figure of a man standing in the dark hallway of the chambers, and her
+heart sank.</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda, you're a fool," she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Her name was not Matilda, but in moments of self-depreciation she was
+wont to address herself as such.</p>
+
+<p>She walked boldly up to the entrance and passed through. The man she saw
+out of the corner of her eye but did not recognize. He seemed as little
+desirous of attracting attention as she. She thought he was rather stout
+and short, but as to this she was not sure. She raced up the stairs and
+turned on the landing to her room. The door of No. 4 was still ajar&mdash;but
+what was much more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>important, so was her door. There was no doubt about
+it, between the edge of the door and the jamb there was a good two
+inches of space, and she distinctly remembered not only closing it, but
+also pushing it to make sure that it was fast. What should she do? To
+her annoyance she felt a cold little feeling inside her and her hands
+were trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"If the lights were only on I'd take the risk," she thought; but the
+lights were not on and it was necessary to pass into the dark interior
+and into a darker bath-room&mdash;a room which is notoriously adaptable for
+murder&mdash;before she could reach the meter.</p>
+
+<p>"Rubbish, Matilda!" she scoffed quaveringly, "go in, you frightened
+little rabbit&mdash;you forgot to shut the door, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>She pushed the door open and with a shiver stepped inside.</p>
+
+<p>Then a sound made her stop dead. It was a shuffle and a creak such as a
+dog might make if he brushed against the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?"</p>
+
+<p>She took one step forward and then something reached out at her. A big
+hand gripped her by the sleeve of her blouse and she heard a deep
+breathing.</p>
+
+<p>She bit her lips to stop the scream that arose, and with a wrench tore
+herself free, leaving a portion of a sleeve in the hands of the unknown.</p>
+
+<p>She darted backward, slamming the door behind her. In two flying strides
+she was at the door of No. 4, hammering with both her fists.</p>
+
+<p>"Drunk or sober he is a man! Drunk or sober he is a man!" she muttered
+incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>Only twice she beat upon the door when it opened suddenly and Mr. Beale
+stood in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>She hardly noticed his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"A man&mdash;a man, in my flat," she gasped, and showed her torn sleeve, "a
+man...!"</p>
+
+<p>He pushed her aside and made for the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>"The key?" he said quickly.</p>
+
+<p>With trembling fingers she extracted it from her pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment."</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared into his own flat and presently came out holding an
+electric torch. He snapped back the lock, put the key in his pocket and
+then, to her amazement, he slipped a short-barrelled revolver from his
+hip-pocket.</p>
+
+<p>With his foot he pushed open the door and she watched him vanish into
+the gloomy interior.</p>
+
+<p>Presently came his voice, sharp and menacing:</p>
+
+<p>"Hands up!"</p>
+
+<p>A voice jabbered something excitedly and then she heard Mr. Beale speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your light working?&mdash;you can come in, I have him in the
+dining-room."</p>
+
+<p>She stepped into the bath-room, the shilling dropped through the
+aperture, the screw grated as she turned it and the lights sprang to
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In one corner of the room was a man, a white-faced, sickly looking man
+with a head too big for his body. His hands were above his head, his
+lower lip trembled in terror.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale was searching him with thoroughness and rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>"No gun, all right, put your hands down. Now turn out your pockets."</p>
+
+<p>The man said something in a language which the girl could not
+understand, and Mr. Beale replied in the same tongue. He put the
+contents, first of one pocket then of the other, upon the table, and the
+girl watched the proceedings with open eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, what's this?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale picked up a card. Thereon was scribbled a figure which might have
+been 6 or 4.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Beale, "now the other pocket&mdash;you understand English, my
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p>Stupidly the man obeyed. A leather pocket-case came from an inside
+pocket and this Beale opened.</p>
+
+<p>Therein was a small packet which resembled the familiar wrapper of a
+seidlitz powder. Beale spoke sharply in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> language which the girl
+realized was German, and the man shook his head. He said something which
+sounded like "No good," several times.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to leave you here alone for awhile," said Beale, "my friend
+and I are going downstairs together&mdash;I shall not be long."</p>
+
+<p>They went out of the flat together, the little man with the big head
+protesting, and she heard their footsteps descending the stairs.
+Presently Beale came up alone and walked into the sitting-room. And then
+the strange unaccountable fact dawned on her&mdash;he was perfectly sober.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were clear, his lips firm, and the fair hair whose tendencies
+to bedragglement had emphasized his disgrace was brushed back over his
+head. He looked at her so earnestly that she grew embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell," he said quietly. "I am going to ask you to do me a
+great favour."</p>
+
+<p>"If it is one that I can grant, you may be sure that I will," she
+smiled, and he nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not ask you to do anything that is impossible in spite of the
+humorist's view of women," he said. "I merely want you to tell nobody
+about what has happened to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody?" she looked at him in astonishment. "But the doctor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not even the doctor," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I ask you
+this as a special favour&mdash;word of honour?"</p>
+
+<p>She thought a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I promise," she said. "I'm to tell nobody about that horrid man from
+whom you so kindly saved me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Understand this, Miss Cresswell, please," he said: "I don't want you to
+be under any misapprehension about that 'horrid man'&mdash;he was just as
+scared as you, and he would not have harmed you. I have been waiting for
+him all the evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting for him?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the doctor's flat," he said calmly, "you see, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> doctor and I are
+deadly rivals. We are rival scientists, and I was waiting for the hairy
+man to steal a march on him."</p>
+
+<p>"But, but&mdash;how did you get in."</p>
+
+<p>"I had this key," he said holding up a small key, "remember, word of
+honour! The man whom I have just left came up and wasn't certain whether
+he had to go in No. 8, that's the doctor's, or No. 6&mdash;<i>and the one key
+fits both doors!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He inserted the key which was in the lock of her door and it turned
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is what I was waiting for&mdash;it was the best the poor devil
+could do."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted the paper package and broke the seals. Unfolding the paper
+carefully he laid it on the table, revealing a teaspoonful of what
+looked like fine green sawdust.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she whispered fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow she knew that she was in the presence of a big elementary
+danger&mdash;something gross and terrible in its primitive force.</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Mr. Beale, choosing his words nicely, "that is a passable
+imitation of the Green Rust, or, as it is to me, the Green Terror."</p>
+
+<p>"The Green Rust? What is the Green Rust&mdash;what can it do?" she asked in
+bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we shall never know," he said, and in his clear eyes was a hint
+of terror.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>PUNSONBY'S DISCHARGE AN EMPLOYEE</h3>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell rose with the final despairing buzz of her alarm clock
+and conquered the almost irresistible temptation to close her eyes, just
+to see what it felt like. Her first impression was that she had had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> no
+sleep all night. She remembered going to bed at one and turning from
+side to side until three. She remembered deciding that the best thing to
+do was to get up, make some tea and watch the sun rise, and that whilst
+she was deciding whether such a step was romantic or just silly, she
+must have gone to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Still, four hours of slumber is practically no slumber to a healthy girl
+and she swung her pyjama-ed legs over the side of the bed and spent
+quite five minutes in a fatuous admiration of her little white feet.
+With an effort she dragged herself to the bath-room and let the tap run.
+Then she put on the kettle. Half an hour later she was feeling well but
+unenthusiastic.</p>
+
+<p>When she became fully conscious, which was on her way to business, she
+realized she was worried. She had been made a party to a secret without
+her wish&mdash;and the drunken Mr. Beale, that youthful profligate, had
+really forced this confidence upon her. Only, and this she recalled with
+a start which sent her chin jerking upward (she was in the bus at the
+time and the conductor, thinking she was signalling him to stop, pulled
+the bell), only Mr. Beale was surprisingly sober and masterful for one
+so weak of character.</p>
+
+<p>Ought she to tell the doctor&mdash;Dr. van Heerden, who had been so good a
+friend of hers? It seemed disloyal, it was disloyal, horribly disloyal
+to him, to hide the fact that Mr. Beale had actually been in the
+doctor's room at night.</p>
+
+<p>But was it a coincidence that the same key opened her door and the
+doctor's? If it were so, it was an embarrassing coincidence. She must
+change the locks without delay.</p>
+
+<p>The bus set her down at the corner of Punsonby's great block. Punsonby's
+is one of the most successful and at the same time one of the most
+exclusive dress-houses in London, and Oliva had indeed been fortunate in
+securing her present position, for employment at Punsonby's was almost
+equal to Government employment in its permanency, as it was certainly
+more lucrative in its pay.</p>
+
+<p>As she stepped on to the pavement she glanced up at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> the big ornate
+clock. She was in good time, she said to herself, and was pushing open
+the big glass door through which employees pass to the various
+departments when a hand touched her gently on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>She turned in surprise to face Mr. Beale, looking particularly smart in
+a well-fitting grey suit, a grey felt hat and a large bunch of violets
+in his buttonhole.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Miss Cresswell," he said pleasantly, "may I have one word
+with you?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I rather wish you had chosen another time and another place, Mr.
+Beale," she said frankly.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I realize it is rather embarrassing," he said, "but unfortunately my
+business cannot wait. I am a business man, you know," he smiled, "in
+spite of my dissolute habits."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him closely, for she thought she detected a gentle mockery
+behind his words, but he was not smiling now.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't keep you more than two minutes," he went on, "but in that two
+minutes I have a great deal to tell you. I won't bore you with the story
+of my life."</p>
+
+<p>This time she saw the amusement in his eyes and smiled against her will,
+because she was not feeling particularly amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a business in the city of London," he said, "and again I would
+ask you to respect my confidence. I am a wheat expert."</p>
+
+<p>"A wheat expert?" she repeated with a puzzled frown.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer job, isn't it? but that's what I am. I have a vacancy in
+my office for a confidential secretary. It is a nice office, the pay is
+good, the hours are few and the work is light. I want to know whether
+you will accept the position."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, regarding him with a new interest, from which
+suspicion was not altogether absent.</p>
+
+<p>"It is awfully kind of you, Mr. Beale, and adds another to the debts I
+owe you," she said, "but I have no desire to leave Punsonby's. It is
+work I like, and although I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> am sure you are not interested in my
+private business"&mdash;he could have told her that he was very much
+interested in her private business, but he refrained&mdash;"I do not mind
+telling you that I am earning a very good salary and I have no intention
+or desire to change my situation."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well, that's my misfortune," he said, "there are only two things I
+can say. The first is that if you work for me you will neither be
+distressed nor annoyed by any habits of mine which you may have observed
+and which may perhaps have prejudiced you against me. In the second
+place, I want you to promise me that if you ever leave Punsonby's you
+will give me the first offer of your services."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are very funny, Mr. Beale, but I feel sure that you mean
+what you say, and that you would confine your&mdash;er&mdash;little eccentricities
+to times outside of business hours. As far as leaving Punsonby's is
+concerned I promise you that I will give you the first offer of my
+invaluable services if ever I leave. And now I am afraid I must run
+away. I am awfully obliged to you for what you did for me last night."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her steadily in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no recollection of anything that happened last night," he said,
+"and I should be glad if your memory would suffer the same lapse."</p>
+
+<p>He shook hands with her, lifted his hat and turned abruptly away, and
+she looked after him till the boom of the clock recalled her to the fact
+that the head of the firm of Punsonby was a stickler for punctuality.</p>
+
+<p>She went into the great cloak-room and hung up her coat and hat. As she
+turned to the mirror to straighten her hair she came face to face with a
+tall, dark girl who had been eyeing her thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning," said Oliva, and there was in her tone more of politeness
+than friendship, for although these two girls had occupied the same
+office for more than a year, there was between them an incompatibility
+which no length of acquaintance could remove.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p><p>Hilda Glaum was of Swiss extraction, and something of a mystery. She
+was good looking in a sulky, saturnine way, but her known virtues
+stopped short at her appearance. She neither invited nor gave
+confidence, and in this respect suited Oliva, but unlike Oliva, she made
+no friends, entered into none of the periodical movements amongst the
+girls, was impervious to the attractions of the river in summer and of
+the Proms in winter, neither visited nor received.</p>
+
+<p>"'Morning," replied the girl shortly; then: "Have you been upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Oliva mounted to the floor where her little office was. She and Hilda
+dealt with the registered mail, extracted and checked the money that
+came from the post-shoppers and sent on the orders to the various
+departments.</p>
+
+<p>Three sealed bags lay on her desk, and a youth from the postal
+department waited to receive a receipt for them. This she scribbled,
+after comparing the numbers attached to the seals with those inscribed
+on the boy's receipt-book.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason Hilda had not followed her, and she was alone and had
+tumbled the contents of the first bag on to her desk when the managing
+director of Punsonby's made a surprising appearance at the
+glass-panelled door of her office.</p>
+
+<p>He was a large, stout and important-looking man, bald and bearded. He
+enjoyed an episcopal manner, and had a trick of pulling back his head
+when he asked questions, as though he desired to evade the full force of
+the answer.</p>
+
+<p>He stood in the doorway and beckoned her out, and she went without any
+premonition of what was in store for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Miss Cresswell," he said. "I&mdash;ah&mdash;am sorry I did not see you before
+you had taken off your coat and hat. Will you come to my office?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, Mr. White," said the girl, wondering what had happened.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><p>He led the way with his majestic stride, dangling a pair of pince-nez
+by their cord, as a fastidious person might carry a mouse by its tail,
+and ushered her into his rosewood-panelled office.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, sit down, Miss Cresswell," he said, and seating himself at
+his desk he put the tips of his fingers together and looked up to the
+ceiling for inspiration. "I am afraid, Miss Cresswell," he said, "that I
+have&mdash;ah&mdash;an unpleasant task."</p>
+
+<p>"An unpleasant task, Mr. White?" she said, with a sinking feeling inside
+her.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to tell you that Punsonby's no longer require your services."</p>
+
+<p>She rose to her feet, looking down at him open-mouthed with wonder and
+consternation.</p>
+
+<p>"Not require my services?" she said slowly. "Do you mean that I am
+discharged?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"In lieu of a month's notice I will give you a cheque for a month's
+salary, plus the unexpired portion of this week's salary."</p>
+
+<p>"But why am I being discharged? Why? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White, who had opened his eyes for a moment to watch the effect of
+his lightning stroke, closed them again.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the practice of Punsonby's to give any reason for dispensing
+with the services of its employees," he said oracularly, "it is
+sufficient that I should tell you that hitherto you have given every
+satisfaction, but for reasons which I am not prepared to discuss we must
+dispense with your services."</p>
+
+<p>Her head was in a whirl. She could not grasp what had happened. For five
+years she had worked in the happiest circumstances in this great store,
+where everybody had been kind to her and where her tasks had been
+congenial. She had never thought of going elsewhere. She regarded
+herself, as did all the better-class employees, as a fixture.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I understand," she asked, "that I am to leave&mdash;at once?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p>Mr. White nodded. He pushed the cheque across the table and she took it
+up and folded it mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are not going to tell me why?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Punsonby's do nothing without a good reason," he said solemnly, feeling
+that whatever happened he must make a good case for Punsonby's, and that
+whoever was to blame for this unhappy incident it was not an august firm
+which paid its fourteen per cent. with monotonous regularity. "We
+lack&mdash;ah&mdash;definite knowledge to proceed any further in this matter
+than&mdash;in fact, than we have proceeded. Definite knowledge" (the girl was
+all the more bewildered by his cumbersome diplomacy) "definite knowledge
+was promised but has not&mdash;in fact, has not come to hand. It is all very
+unpleasant&mdash;very unpleasant," and he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>She bowed and turning, walked quickly from the room, passed to the lobby
+where her coat was hung, put on her hat and left Punsonby's for ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was when she had reached the street that, with a shock, she
+remembered Beale's words and she stood stock-still, pinching her lip
+thoughtfully. Had he known? Why had he come that morning, hours before
+he was ordinarily visible&mdash;if the common gossip of Krooman Mansions be
+worthy of credence?&mdash;and then as though to cap the amazing events of the
+morning she saw him. He was standing on the corner of the street,
+leaning on his cane, smoking a long cigarette through a much longer
+holder, and he seemed wholly absorbed in watching a linesman, perched
+high above the street, repairing a telegraph wire.</p>
+
+<p>She made a step toward him, but stopped. He was so evidently engrossed
+in the acrobatics of the honest workman in mid-air that he could not
+have seen her and she turned swiftly and walked the other way.</p>
+
+<p>She had not reached the end of the block before he was at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going home early, Miss Cresswell," he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p>"Do you know why?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why&mdash;unless&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless you have been discharged," he said coolly.</p>
+
+<p>Her brows knit.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about my discharge?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Such things are possible," said Mr. Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know I was going to be discharged?" she asked again.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't exactly know you would be discharged this morning, but I had
+an idea you would be discharged at some time or other. That is why I
+came with my offer."</p>
+
+<p>"Which, of course, I won't accept," she snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Which, of course, you have accepted," he said quietly. "Believe me, I
+know nothing more than that Punsonby's have been prevailed upon to
+discharge you. What reason induced them to take that step, honestly I
+don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>He was grave of a sudden.</p>
+
+<p>"I just thought so," he said. "I am not going to be mysterious with you
+and I can only tell you that I had reasons to believe that some such
+step would be taken."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite mysterious enough," she said. "Do you seriously want me to
+work for you?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't tell me your city address."</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I came back," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you knew I was coming out?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you would come out some time in the day."</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me that you would have waited all day to give me
+your address?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I only mean this," he replied, "that I should have waited all day."</p>
+
+<p>It was a helpless laugh which echoed his.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>"My address is 342 Lothbury," he went on, "342. You may begin work this
+afternoon and&mdash;&mdash;" He hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"And?" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"And I think it would be wise if you didn't tell your friend, the
+doctor, that I am employing you."</p>
+
+<p>He was examining his finger-nails attentively as he spoke, and he did
+not meet her eye.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many reasons," he went on. "In the first place, I have
+blotted my copy-book, as they say, in Krooman Mansions, and it might not
+rebound to your credit."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have thought of that before you asked me to come to you,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of it a great deal," he replied calmly.</p>
+
+<p>There was much in what he said, as the girl recognized. She blamed
+herself for her hasty promise, but somehow the events of the previous
+night had placed him on a different footing, had given him a certain
+indefinable position to which the inebriate Mr. Beale had not aspired.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I am rather bewildered by all the mystery of it," she said,
+"and I don't think I will come to the office to-day. To-morrow morning,
+at what hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten o'clock," he said, "I will be there to explain your duties. Your
+salary will be &pound;5 a week. You will be in charge of the office, to which
+I very seldom go, by the way, and your work will be preparing
+statistical returns of the wheat-crops in all the wheat-fields of the
+world for the last fifty years."</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds thrilling," she said, and a quick smile flashed across his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"It is much more thrilling than you imagine," were his parting words.</p>
+
+<p>She reached Krooman Mansions just as the doctor was coming out, and he
+looked at her in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"You are back early!"</p>
+
+<p>Should she tell him? There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had been
+a good friend of hers and she felt sure of his sympathy. It occurred to
+her at that moment that Mr. Beale had been most unsympathetic, and had
+not expressed one word of regret.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, I've been discharged," she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Discharged? Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"To prove that it is possible it has happened," she said cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl, this is monstrous! What excuse did they give?"</p>
+
+<p>"None." This was said with a lightness of tone which did not reflect the
+indignation she felt at heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Did they give you no reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"They gave me none. They gave me my month's cheque and just told me to
+go off, and off I came like the well-disciplined wage-earner I am."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is monstrous," he said indignantly. "I will go and see them. I
+know one of the heads of the firm&mdash;at least, he is a patient of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"You will do nothing of the kind," she replied firmly. "It really
+doesn't matter."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do? By Jove!" he said suddenly, "what a splendid
+idea! I want a clinical secretary."</p>
+
+<p>The humour of it got the better of her, and she laughed in his face.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the joke?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am so sorry, doctor, but you mustn't think I am ungrateful, but I
+am beginning to regard myself as one of the plums in the labour market."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you another position?" he asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just accepted one," she said, and he did not disguise his
+disappointment, which might even have been interpreted, were Oliva more
+conceited, into absolute chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very quick," said he, and his voice had lost some of its
+enthusiasm. "What position have you taken?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going into an office in the city," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"That will be dull. If you have settled it in your mind, of course, I
+cannot alter your decision, but I would be quite willing to give you &pound;5
+or &pound;6 a week, and the work would be very light."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p><p>She held out her hand, and there was a twinkle in her eye.</p>
+
+<p>"London is simply filled with people who want to give me &pound;5 a week for
+work which is very light; really I am awfully grateful to you, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>She felt more cheerful as she mounted the stairs than she thought would
+have been possible had such a position been forecast and had she to
+speculate upon the attitude of mind with which she would meet such a
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Punsonby's, for all the humiliation of her dismissal, seemed fairly
+unimportant. Some day she would discover the circumstances which had
+decided the high gods who presided over the ready-made clothing business
+in their action.</p>
+
+<p>She unlocked the door and passed in, not without a comprehensive and an
+amused glance which took in the sober front doors of her new employer
+and her would-be employer.</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah, your luck's in," she said, as she banged the door&mdash;Sarah was the
+approving version of Matilda. "If the wheezy man fires you, be sure
+there'll be a good angel waiting on the doorstep to offer you &pound;20 a week
+for 'phoning the office once a day."</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to her that it would be wise to place on record her protest
+against her summary dismissal, and she went to the little
+bookshelf-writing-table where she kept her writing-material to indite
+the epistle whilst she thought of it. It was one of those little
+fumed-oak contraptions where the desk is formed by a hinged flap which
+serves when not in use to close the desk.</p>
+
+<p>She pulled out the two little supports, inserted the key in the lock,
+but it refused to turn, for the simple reason that it was unlocked. She
+had distinctly remembered that morning locking it after putting away the
+bill which had arrived with the morning post.</p>
+
+<p>She pulled down the flap slowly and stared in amazement at the little
+which it hid. Every pigeon-hole had been ransacked and the contents were
+piled up in a confused heap. The two tiny drawers in which she kept
+stamps and nibs were out and emptied.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE</h3>
+
+<p>She made a rapid survey of the documents. They were unimportant, and
+consisted mainly of letters from the few girl friends she had made
+during her stay at Punsonby's&mdash;old theatre programmes, recipes copied
+from newspapers and bunches of snapshots taken on her last summer
+excursion.</p>
+
+<p>She arranged the things in some sort of rough order and made an
+inspection of her bedroom. Here, too, there was evidence that somebody
+had been searching the room. The drawers of her dressing-table were
+open, and though the contents had been little disturbed, it was clear
+that they had been searched. She made another discovery. The window of
+the bedroom was open at the bottom. Usually it was open half-way down
+from the top, and was fastened in that position by a patent catch. This
+precaution was necessary, because the window looked upon a narrow iron
+parapet which ran along the building and communicated with the
+fire-escape. She looked out. Evidently the intruder had both come and
+gone this way, and as evidently her return had disturbed him in his
+inspection, for it was hardly likely he would leave her papers and
+bureau in that state of confusion.</p>
+
+<p>She made a brief inspection of the drawers in the dressing-table, and so
+far as she could see nothing was missing. She went back to the
+writing-bureau, mechanically put away the papers, little
+memorandum-books and letters which had been dragged from their
+pigeon-holes, then resting her elbow on the desk she sat, chin in hand,
+her pretty forehead wrinkled in a frown, recalling the events of the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Who had searched her desk? What did they hope to discover? She had no
+illusions that this was the work of a common thief. There was something
+behind all this, something sinister and terrifying.</p>
+
+<p>What association had the search with her summary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> dismissal and what did
+the pompous Mr. White mean when he talked about definite knowledge?
+Definite knowledge of what? She gave it up with a shrug. She was not as
+much alarmed as disturbed. Life was grating a little, and she resented
+this departure from the smooth course which it had hitherto run. She
+resented the intrusion of Mr. Beale, who was drunk one moment and sober
+the next, who had offices in the city which he did not visit and who
+took such an inordinate interest in her affairs, and she resented him
+all the more because, in some indefinable way, he had shaken her
+faith&mdash;no, not shaken her faith, that was too strong a term&mdash;he had
+pared the mild romance which Dr. van Heerden's friendship represented.</p>
+
+<p>She got up from the table and paced the room, planning her day. She
+would go out to lunch and indulge in the dissipation of a matinee.
+Perhaps she would stay out to dinner and come back&mdash;she shivered
+unconsciously and looked round the room. Somehow she did not look
+forward to an evening spent alone in her flat.</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda, you're getting maudlin," she said, "you are getting romantic,
+too. You are reading too many sensational novels and seeing too many
+sensational films."</p>
+
+<p>She walked briskly into her bedroom, unhooked a suit from the wardrobe
+and laid it on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment there came a knock at the door. She put down the
+clothes-brush which was in her hand, walked out into the hall, opened
+the door and stepped back. Three men stood in the passage without. Two
+were strangers with that curious official look which the plain-clothes
+policeman can never wholly eradicate from his bearing. The third was Mr.
+White, more pompous and more solemn than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell?" asked one of the strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name."</p>
+
+<p>"May we come inside? I want to see you."</p>
+
+<p>She led the way to her little sitting-room. Mr. White followed in the
+rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name is Oliva Cresswell. You were recently employed by Punsonby's,
+Limited, as cashier."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p><p>"That is true," she said, wondering what was coming next.</p>
+
+<p>"Certain information was laid against you," said the spokesman, "as a
+result of which you were discharged from the firm this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyebrows in indignant surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Information laid against me?" she said haughtily. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, that a charge was made against you that you were converting
+money belonging to the firm to your own use. That was the charge, I
+believe, sir?" He turned to Mr. White.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a lie. It is an outrageous lie," cried the girl, turning flaming
+eyes upon the stout managing director of Punsonby's. "You know it's a
+lie, Mr. White! Thousands of pounds have passed through my hands and I
+have never&mdash;oh, it's cruel."</p>
+
+<p>"If you will only keep calm for a little while, miss," said the man, who
+was not unused to such outbreaks, "I will explain that at the moment of
+your dismissal there was no evidence against you."</p>
+
+<p>"No definite knowledge of your offence," murmured Mr. White.</p>
+
+<p>"And now?" demanded the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we have information, miss, to the effect that three registered
+letters, containing in all the sum of &pound;63&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Fourteen and sevenpence," murmured Mr. White.</p>
+
+<p>"Sixty-three pounds odd," said the detective, "which were abstracted by
+you yesterday are concealed in this flat."</p>
+
+<p>"In the left-hand bottom drawer of your bureau," murmured Mr. White.
+"That is the definite knowledge which has come to us&mdash;it is a great
+pity."</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Three registered envelopes," she said incredulously; "in this flat?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the bottom drawer of your bureau," mumbled Mr. White, who stood
+throughout the interview with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> eyes closed, his hands clasped in
+front of him, a picture of a man performing a most painful act of duty.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a warrant&mdash;&mdash;" began the detective.</p>
+
+<p>"You need no warrant," said the girl quietly, "you are at liberty to
+search this flat or bring a woman to search me. I have nothing in these
+rooms which I am ashamed that you should see."</p>
+
+<p>The detective turned to his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Fred," he said, "just have a look over that writing-bureau. Is it
+locked, miss?"</p>
+
+<p>She had closed and locked the secretaire and she handed the man the key.
+The detective who had done the speaking passed into the bedroom, and the
+girl heard him pulling out the drawers. She did not move from where she
+stood confronting her late employer, still preserving his attitude of
+somnolent detachment.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. White," she asked quietly, "I have a right to know who accused me
+of stealing from your firm."</p>
+
+<p>He made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Even a criminal has a right to that, you know," she said, recovering
+some of her poise. "I suppose that you have been missing things for
+quite a long while&mdash;people always miss things for quite a long while
+before the thief is discovered, according to the Sunday papers."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not read newspapers published on the Lord's Day," said Mr. White
+reproachfully. "I do not know the habits of the criminal classes, but as
+you say, and I fear I must convey the gist of your speech to the
+officers of the law, money has been missed from your department for a
+considerable time. As to your accuser, acting as&mdash;ah&mdash;as a good citizen
+and performing the duties which are associated with good-citizenship, I
+cannot reveal his, her, or their name."</p>
+
+<p>She was eyeing him curiously with a gleam of dormant laughter in her
+clear eyes. Then she heard a hurried footstep in the little passage and
+remembered that the door had been left open and she looked round.</p>
+
+<p>The new-comer was Dr. van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this I hear?" he demanded fiercely, addressing White. "You dare
+accuse Miss Cresswell of theft?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>"My dear doctor," began White.</p>
+
+<p>"It is an outrage," said the doctor. "It is disgraceful, Mr. White. I
+will vouch for Miss Cresswell with my life."</p>
+
+<p>The girl stopped him with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't be dramatic, doctor. It's really a stupid mistake. I
+didn't know you knew Mr. White."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a disgraceful mistake," said the doctor violently. "I am
+surprised at you, White."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White could not close his eyes any tighter than they were closed. He
+passed the responsibility for the situation upon an invisible Providence
+with one heaving shrug of his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"It is awfully kind of you to take this interest, doctor," said the
+girl, putting out her hands to him, "it was just like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything I can do?" he asked earnestly. "You can depend upon
+me to the last shilling if any trouble arises out of this."</p>
+
+<p>"No trouble will arise out of it," she said. "Mr. White thinks that I
+have stolen money and that that money is hidden in the flat&mdash;by the way,
+who told you that I had been accused?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he was taken aback; then:</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the police officers go into your flat. I recognized them, and as
+they were accompanied by White, and you had been dismissed this morning,
+I drew my own conclusions."</p>
+
+<p>It was at this moment that the detective came back from the bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing there," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White opened his eyes to their fullest extent.</p>
+
+<p>"In the bottom drawer of the bureau?" he asked incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither in the bottom drawer nor the top drawer," said the detective.
+"Have you found anything, Fred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," said the other man.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a look behind those pictures."</p>
+
+<p>They turned up the corners of the carpets, searched her one little
+bookcase, looked under the tables, an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>unnecessary and amusing
+proceeding in the girl's eyes till the detective explained with that
+display of friendliness which all policemen show to suspected persons
+whom they do not at heart suspect, it was not an uncommon process for
+criminals to tack the proceeds of bank-note robberies to the underside
+of the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, miss," said the detective at last, with a smile, "I hope we
+haven't worried you very much. What do you intend doing, sir?" He
+addressed White.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you search the bottom drawer of the bureau?" said Mr. White again.</p>
+
+<p>"I searched the bottom drawer of the bureau, the top drawer and the
+middle drawer," said the detective patiently. "I searched the back of
+the bureau, the trinket-drawer, the trinket-boxes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And it was not there?" said Mr. White, as though he could not believe
+his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not there. What I want to know is, do you charge this young
+lady? If you charge her, of course you take all the responsibility for
+the act, and if you fail to convict her you will be liable to an action
+for false arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know, I know," said Mr. White, with remarkable asperity in
+one so placid. "No, I do not charge her. I am sorry you have been
+inconvenienced"&mdash;he turned to the girl in his most majestic manner&mdash;"and
+I trust that you bear no ill-will."</p>
+
+<p>He offered a large and flabby hand, but Oliva ignored it.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you don't trip over the mat as you go out," she said, "the passage
+is rather dark."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White left the room, breathing heavily.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me one moment," said the doctor in a low voice. "I have a few
+words to say to White."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't make a fuss," said Oliva, "I would rather the matter
+dropped where it is."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, and strode out after the managing director of Punsonby's.
+They made a little group of four.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I see you in my flat for a moment, Mr. White?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Mr. White cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want us any more?" asked the detective.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p><p>"No," said Mr. White; then: "Are you quite sure you searched the bottom
+drawer of the bureau?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly sure," said the detective irritably, "you don't suppose I've
+been at this job for twenty years and should overlook the one place
+where I expected to find the letters."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White was saved the labour of framing a suitable retort, for the
+door of Mr. Beale's flat was flung open and Mr. Beale came forth. His
+grey hat was on the back of his head and he stood erect with the aid of
+the door-post, surveying with a bland and inane smile the little knot of
+men.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said jovially, "it's the dear old doctor, and if my eyes don't
+deceive me, it's the jolly old Archbishop."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White brindled. That he was known as the Archbishop in the intimate
+circles of his acquaintances afforded him a certain satisfaction. That a
+perfect stranger, and a perfectly drunken stranger at that, should
+employ a nickname which was for the use of a privileged few, distressed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"And," said the swaying man by the door, peering through the
+half-darkness: "Is it not Detective-Sergeant Peterson and Constable
+Fairbank? Welcome to this home of virtue."</p>
+
+<p>The detective-sergeant smiled but said nothing. The doctor fingered his
+beard indecisively, but Mr. White essayed to stride past, his chin in
+the air, ignoring the greeting, but Mr. Beale was too quick for him. He
+lurched forward, caught the lapels of the other's immaculate frock-coat
+and held himself erect thereby.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear old Whitey," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know you, sir," cried Mr. White, "will you please unhand me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know me, Whitey? Why you astonishing old thing!"</p>
+
+<p>He slipped his arm over the other's shoulder in an attitude of
+affectionate regard. "Don't know old Beale?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never met you before," said Mr. White, struggling to escape.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p><p>"Bless my life and soul," said Mr. Beale, stepping back, shocked and
+hurt, "I call you to witnesh, Detective-Sergeant Peterson and amiable
+Constable Fairbank and learned Dr. van Heerden, that he has denied me.
+And it has come to this," he said bitterly, and leaning his head against
+the door-post he howled like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, stop your fooling, Beale," said the doctor angrily, "there's
+been very serious business here, and I should thank you not to
+interfere."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale wiped imaginary tears from his eyes, grasped Mr. White's
+unwilling hand and shook it vigorously, staggered back to his flat and
+slammed the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that man?" asked the doctor, turning to the detective.</p>
+
+<p>"I seem to remember his face," said the sergeant. "Come on, Fred. Good
+morning, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>They waited till the officers were downstairs and out of sight, and then
+the doctor turned to the other and in a different tone from any he had
+employed, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Come into my room for a moment, White," and Mr. White followed him
+obediently.</p>
+
+<p>They shut the door and passed into the study, with its rows of heavily
+bound books, its long table covered with test-tubes and the
+paraphernalia of medical research.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said White, dropping into a chair, "what happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I want to know," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>He took a cigarette from a box on the table and lit it and the two men
+looked at one another without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think she had the letters and hid them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible," replied the doctor briefly.</p>
+
+<p>White grunted, took a cigar from a long leather case, bit off the end
+savagely and reached out his hand for a match.</p>
+
+<p>"'The best-laid schemes of mice and men!'" he quoted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up," said the doctor savagely.</p>
+
+<p>He was pacing the study with long strides. He stopped at one end of the
+room staring moodily through the window, his hands thrust in his
+pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what happened," he said again. "Well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that can wait. Now just
+tell me exactly how matters stand in regard to you and Punsonby's."</p>
+
+<p>"I have all the figures here," said Mr. White, as he thrust his hand
+into the inside pocket of his frock-coat, "I can raise &pound;40,000 by
+debentures and&mdash;hello, what's this?"</p>
+
+<p>He drew from his pocket a white packet, fastened about by a rubber band.
+This he slipped off and gasped, for in his hands were three registered
+letters, and they were addressed to Messrs. Punsonby, and each had been
+slit open.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAN WITH THE BIG HEAD</h3>
+
+<p>No. 342, Lothbury, is a block of business offices somewhat unpretentious
+in their approach but of surprising depth and importance when explored.
+Oliva Cresswell stood for awhile in the great lobby, inspecting the
+names of the occupants, which were inscribed on porcelain slips in two
+big frames on each wall of the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>After a lengthy search she discovered the name of the Beale Agency under
+the heading "fourth floor" and made her way to the elevator.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale's office was at the end of a seemingly interminable corridor
+and consisted, as she was to find, of an outer and an inner chamber. The
+outer was simply furnished with a table, two chairs and a railed fence
+bisected with a little wooden gateway.</p>
+
+<p>A boy sat at one table, engaged in laborious exercise on a typewriter
+with one finger of one hand.</p>
+
+<p>He jumped up as she came through the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell?" he asked. "Mr. Beale will see you."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the wicket-gate and led the way to a door marked "Private."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>It was Beale who opened the door in response to the knock.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Miss Cresswell," he said cheerily, "I didn't expect you for
+half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I'd start well," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>She had had many misgivings that morning, and had spent a restless night
+debating the wisdom of engaging herself to an employer whose known
+weakness had made his name a by-word. But a promise was a promise and,
+after all, she told herself, her promise was fulfilled when she had
+given the new work a trial.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your desk," he said, indicating a large office table in the
+centre of the room, "and here is my little library. You will note that
+it mainly consists of agricultural returns and reports&mdash;do you read
+French?" She nodded. "Good, and Spanish&mdash;that's rather too much to
+expect, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I speak and read Spanish very well," she said. "When I was a little
+girl I lived around in Paris, Lyons, and Barcelona&mdash;my first regular
+work&mdash;the first I was paid for&mdash;was in the Anglo-Spanish Cable office in
+Barcelona."</p>
+
+<p>"That's lucky," he said, apparently relieved, "though I could have
+taught you the few words that it is necessary you should know to
+understand the Argentine reports. What I particularly want you to
+discover&mdash;and you will find two or three hundred local guide-books on
+that shelf at the far end of the room, and these will help you a great
+deal&mdash;is the exact locations of all the big wheat-growing districts, the
+number of hectares under cultivation in normal times, the method by
+which the wheat areas are divided&mdash;by fences, roads, etc.&mdash;the average
+size of the unbroken blocks of wheatland and, if possible, the width of
+the roads or paths which divide them."</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious!" she cried in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds a monumental business, but I think you will find it simple.
+The Agricultural Department of the United States Government, for
+instance, tabulate all those facts. For example, they compel farmers in
+certain districts to keep a clear space between each lot so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> in
+case of the crops being fired, the fire may be isolated. Canada, the
+Argentine and Australia have other methods."</p>
+
+<p>She had seated herself at the desk and was jotting down a note of her
+duties.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything more?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I want the names of the towns in the centre of the wheat-growing
+areas, a list of the hotels in those towns. The guide-books you will
+find up to date, and these will inform you on this subject. Particularly
+do I want hotels noted where automobiles can be hired, the address of
+the local bank and the name of the manager and, where the information is
+available, the name of the chief constable, sheriff or chef
+d'gendarmerie in each district."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him, her pencil poised.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you serious&mdash;of course, I'll do all this, but somehow it reminds me
+of a story I once read&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," said Beale promptly, "it is 'The Case of the Red-Haired
+Man,' one of Doyle's stories about a man who, to keep him away from his
+shop, was employed on the useless task of copying the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia
+Britannica</i>&mdash;no, I am asking you to do serious work, Miss
+Cresswell&mdash;work which I do not want spoken about."</p>
+
+<p>He sat on the edge of the table, looking down at her, and if his eyes
+were smiling it was because that was their natural expression. She had
+never seen them when they did not hold the ghost of some joke inwardly
+enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>But her instinct told her that he was very much in earnest and that the
+task he had set her was one which had reason behind it.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the districts first and work up the hotels, et cetera," he
+suggested, "you will find it more interesting than a novel. Those little
+books," he pointed to the crowded shelf by the window, "will carry you
+to stations and ranches and farms all over the world. You shall be
+wafted through Manitoba, and cross the United States from New England to
+California. You will know Sydney and Melbourne and the great cornland at
+the back of beyond. And you'll sit in cool patios and sip iced drinks
+with Se&ntilde;or Don Perfecto de Cuba who has ridden in from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> his rancio to
+inquire the price of May wheat, or maybe you'll just amble through India
+on an elephant, sleeping in bungalows, listening to the howling of
+tigers, mosquitoes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know you're laughing at me," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Not altogether," he said quietly; then: "Is there any question you'd
+like to ask me? By the way, the key of the office is in the right-hand
+drawer; go to lunch when you like and stay away as long as you like.
+Your cheque will be paid you every Friday morning."</p>
+
+<p>"But where&mdash;&mdash;?" She looked round the room. "Where do you work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't work," he said promptly, "you do the work and I get the honour
+and glory. When I come in I will sit on the edge of your desk, which is
+not graceful but it is very comfortable. There is one question I meant
+to ask you. You said you were in a cable office&mdash;do you add to your
+accomplishments a working knowledge of the Morse Code?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see you being useful. If you need me"&mdash;he jerked his head toward
+a telephone on a small table&mdash;"call 8761 Gerrard."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is that?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought you were anything but a very sane young lady, I should
+tell you that it is the number of my favourite bar," he said gravely. "I
+will not, however, practise that harmless deception upon you."</p>
+
+<p>Again she saw the dancing light of mischief in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a queer man," she said, "and I will not make myself ridiculous
+by speaking to you for your good."</p>
+
+<p>She heard his soft laughter as the door closed behind him and, gathering
+an armful of the guide-books, she settled down for a morning's work
+which proved even more fascinating than his fanciful pictures had
+suggested. She found herself wondering to what use all this information
+she extracted could be put. Was Mr. Beale really a buyer or was he
+interested in the sale of agricultural machinery? Why should he want to
+know that Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of Scobbs' Hotel and General
+Emporium<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> in the town of Red Horse Valley, Alberta, and what
+significance attached to the fact that he had an automobile for hire or
+that he ran a coach every Wednesday to Regina?</p>
+
+<p>Then she fell to speculating upon the identity and appearance of this
+man who bore this weird name of Scobbs. She pictured him an elderly man
+with chin whiskers who wore his pants thrust into top-boots. And why was
+Red Horse Valley so called? These unexpected and, to her, hitherto
+unknown names of places and people set in train most interesting
+processions of thought that slid through the noisy jangle of traffic,
+and coloured the drab walls of all that was visible of the City of
+London through the window with the white lights and purple shadows of
+dream prairies.</p>
+
+<p>When she looked at her watch&mdash;being impelled to that act by the
+indescribable sensation of hunger&mdash;she was amazed to discover that it
+was three o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>She jumped up and went to the outer office in search of the boy who, she
+faintly remembered, had erupted into her presence hours before with a
+request which she had granted without properly hearing. He was not in
+evidence. Evidently his petition had also been associated with the
+gnawing pangs which assail boyhood at one o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>She was turning back to her office, undecided as to whether she should
+remain until his return or close the office entirely, when the shuffle
+of feet brought her round.</p>
+
+<p>The outer office was partitioned from the entrance by a long "fence,"
+the farther end of which was hidden by a screen of wood and frosted
+glass. It was from behind that screen that the noise came and she
+remembered that she had noted a chair there&mdash;evidently a place where
+callers waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>There was a creak as the visitor rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Eggscuse, mattam," said a wheezy voice, "I gall to eng-vire for Mister
+Peale, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled forward into view, a small man with a dead white face and a
+head of monstrous size.</p>
+
+<p>She was bereft of speech and could only look at him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> for this was the
+man she had found in her rooms the night before her dismissal&mdash;the man
+who carried the Green Rust.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently he did not recognize her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Peale, he tolt me, I must gall him mit der telephone, but der
+nomber she vas gone oudt of mine head!"</p>
+
+<p>He blinked at her with his short-sighted eyes and laid a big hairy hand
+on the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"You must&mdash;you mustn't come in," she said breathlessly. "I will call Mr.
+Beale&mdash;sit&mdash;sit down again."</p>
+
+<p>"Sch," he said obediently, and shuffled back to his chair, "dell him der
+Herr Brofessor it was."</p>
+
+<p>The girl took up the telephone receiver with a shaking hand and gave the
+number. It was Beale's voice that answered her.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a man here," she said hurriedly, "a&mdash;a&mdash;the man&mdash;who was in my
+room&mdash;the Herr Professor."</p>
+
+<p>She heard his exclamation of annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," and if she could judge by the inflection of his voice his
+sorrow was genuine. "I'll be with you in ten minutes&mdash;he's quite a
+harmless old gentleman&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, please."</p>
+
+<p>She heard the "click" of his receiver and replaced her own slowly. She
+did not attempt to go back to the outer office, but waited by the closed
+door. She recalled the night, the terror of that unknown presence in her
+darkened flat, and shuddered. Then Beale, surprisingly sober, had come
+in and he and the "burglar" had gone away together.</p>
+
+<p>What had these two, Mr. Beale and the "Herr Professor," in common? She
+heard the snap of the outer door, and Beale's voice speaking quickly. It
+was probably German&mdash;she had never acquired the language and hardly
+recognized it, though the guttural "Zu befel, Herr Peale" was distinct.</p>
+
+<p>She heard the shuffle of the man's feet and the closing of the outer
+door and then Beale came in, and his face was troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you how sorry I am that the old man called&mdash;I'd forgotten
+that he was likely to come."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p><p>She leant against the table, both hands behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Beale," she said, "will you give me straightforward answers to a
+number of plain questions?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"If I can," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the Herr Professor a friend of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I know him and in a way I am sorry for him. He is a German who
+pretends to be Russian. Immensely poor and unprepossessing to a painful
+degree, but a very clever scientist. In fact, a truly great analytical
+chemist who ought to be holding a good position. He told me that he had
+the best qualifications, and I quite believe him, but that his physical
+infirmities, his very freakishness had ruined him."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes softened with pity&mdash;the pity of the strong for the weak, of the
+beautiful for the hideous.</p>
+
+<p>"If that is true&mdash;&mdash;" she began, and his chin went up. "I beg your
+pardon, I know it is true. It is tragic, but&mdash;did you know him before
+you met him in my room?"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him both by repute and by sight," he said. "I knew the work he
+was engaged on and I guessed why he was engaged. But I had never spoken
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you&mdash;now for question number two. You needn't answer unless you
+wish."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's frank, anyway. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, what is all this mystery
+about? What is the Green Rust? Why do you pretend to be a&mdash;a drunkard
+when you're not one?" (It needed some boldness to say this, and she
+flushed with the effort to shape the sentence.) "Why are you always
+around so providentially when you're needed, and," here she smiled (as
+he thought) deliciously, "why weren't you round yesterday, when I was
+nearly arrested for theft?"</p>
+
+<p>He was back on the edge of the table, evidently his favourite
+resting-place, she thought, and he ticked her questions off on his
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Question number one cannot be answered. Question number two, why do I
+pretend to be a&mdash;a drunkard?" he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> mimicked her audaciously. "There are
+other things which intoxicate a man beside love and beer, Miss
+Cresswell."</p>
+
+<p>"How gross!" she protested. "What are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Work, the chase, scientific research and the first spring scent of the
+hawthorn," he said solemnly. "As to the third question, why was I not
+around when you were nearly arrested? Well, I was around. I was in your
+flat when you came in and escaped along the fire parapet."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Beale!" she gasped. "Then it was you&mdash;you are a detective!"</p>
+
+<p>"I turned your desk and dressing-chest upside down? Yes, it was I," he
+said without shame, ignoring the latter part of the sentence. "I was
+looking for something."</p>
+
+<p>"You were looking for something?" she repeated. "What were you looking
+for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three registered envelopes which were planted in your flat yesterday
+morning," he said, "and what's more I found 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand to her forehead in bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Saved you from a cold, cold prison cell. Have you had any lunch? Why,
+you're starving!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bread and butter is what you want," said the practical Mr. Beale, "with
+a large crisp slice of chicken and stacks of various vegetables."</p>
+
+<p>And he hustled her from the office.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. SCOBBS OF RED HORSE VALLEY</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. White, managing director of Punsonby's Store, was a man of simple
+tastes. He had a horror of extravagance and it was his boast that he had
+never ridden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> in a taxi-cab save as the guest of some other person who
+paid. He travelled by tube or omnibus from the Bayswater Road, where he
+lived what he described as his private life. He lunched in the staff
+dining-room, punctiliously paying his bill; he dined at home in solitary
+state, for he had neither chick nor child, heir or wife. Once an elder
+sister had lived with him and had died (according to the popularly
+accepted idea) of slow starvation, for he was a frugal man.</p>
+
+<p>It seems the fate of apparently rich and frugal men that they either die
+and leave their hoardings to the State or else they disappear, leaving
+behind them monumental debts. The latter have apparently no vices; even
+the harassed accountant who disentangles their estates cannot discover
+the channel through which their hundreds of thousands have poured. The
+money has gone and, if astute detectives bring back the defaulter from
+the pleasant life which the Southern American cities offer to rich
+idlers, he is hopelessly vague as to the method by which it went.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lassimus White was the managing director and general manager of
+Punsonby's. He held, or was supposed to hold, a third of the shares in
+that concern, shares which he had inherited from John Punsonby, his
+uncle, and the founder of the firm. He drew a princely salary and a
+substantial dividend, he was listed as a debenture holder and was
+accounted a rich man.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. White was not rich. His salary and his dividends were absorbed
+by a mysterious agency which called itself the Union Jack Investment and
+Mortgage Corporation, which paid premiums on Mr. White's heavy life
+insurance and collected the whole or nearly the whole of his income. His
+secret, well guarded as it was, need be no secret to the reader. Mr.
+White, who had never touched a playing-card in his life and who grew
+apoplectic at the sin and shame of playing the races, was an inveterate
+gambler. His passion was for Sunken Treasure Syndicates, formed to
+recover golden ingots from ships of the Spanish Armada; for companies
+that set forth to harness the horse-power of the sea to the services of
+commerce; for optimistic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>companies that discovered radium mines in the
+Ural Mountains&mdash;anything which promised a steady three hundred per cent.
+per annum on an initial investment had an irresistible attraction for
+Mr. White, who argued that some day something would really fulfil
+expectations and his losses would be recovered.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime he was in the hands of Moss Ibramovitch, trading as the
+Union Jack Investment and Mortgage Corporation, licensed and registered
+as a moneylender according to law. And being in the hands of this
+gentleman, was much less satisfactory and infinitely more expensive than
+being in the hands of the bankruptcy officials.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening of the day Oliva Cresswell had started working for her
+new employer, Mr. White stalked forth from his gloomy house and his
+departure was watched by the two tough females who kept house for him,
+with every pleasure. He strutted eastward swinging his umbrella, his
+head well back, his eyes half-closed, his massive waistcoat curving
+regally. His silk hat was pushed back from his forehead and the
+pince-nez he carried, but so seldom wore, swung from the cord he held
+before him in that dead-mouse manner which important men affect.</p>
+
+<p>He had often been mistaken for a Fellow of the Royal Society, so learned
+and detached was his bearing. Yet no speculation upon the origin of
+species or the function of the nebul&aelig; filled his mind.</p>
+
+<p>At a moment of great stress and distraction, Dr. van Heerden had arisen
+above his horizon, and there was something in Dr. van Heerden's manner
+which inspired confidence and respect. They had met by accident at a
+meeting held to liquidate the Shining Strand Alluvial Gold Mining
+Company&mdash;a concern which had started forth in the happiest circumstances
+to extract the fabulous riches which had been discovered by an American
+philanthropist (he is now selling Real Estate by correspondence) on a
+Southern Pacific island.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden was not a shareholder, but he was intensely interested in
+the kind of people who subscribe for shares in Dreamland Gold mines. Mr.
+White had attended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> incognito&mdash;his shares were held in the name of his
+lawyer, who was thinking seriously of building an annex to hold the
+unprofitable scrip.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White was gratified to discover a kindred soul who believed in this
+kind of speculation.</p>
+
+<p>It was to the doctor's apartment that he was now walking. That gentleman
+met him in the entrance and accompanied him to his room. There was a
+light in the fanlight of Oliva's flat, for she had brought some of her
+work home to finish, but Mr. Beale's flat was dark.</p>
+
+<p>This the doctor noted before he closed his own door, and switched on the
+light.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, White, have you made up your mind?" he demanded without
+preliminary.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;ah&mdash;have and I&mdash;ah&mdash;have not," said the cautious adventurer. "Forty
+thousand is a lot of money&mdash;a fortune, one might say&mdash;yes, a fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you raised it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White sniffed his objection to this direct examination.</p>
+
+<p>"My broker has very kindly realized the debentures&mdash;I am&mdash;ah&mdash;somewhat
+indebted to him, and it was necessary to secure his permission and&mdash;yes,
+I have the money at my bank."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed benignly at the other, as one who conferred a favour by the
+mere bestowal of his confidences.</p>
+
+<p>"First, doctor&mdash;forgive me if I am a little cautious; first I say, it is
+necessary that I should know a little more about your remarkable scheme,
+for remarkable I am sure it is."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor poured out a whisky and soda and passed the glass to his
+visitor, who smilingly waved it aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Wine is a mocker," he said, "nothing stronger than cider has ever
+passed my lips&mdash;pray do not be offended."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I seem to remember that you held shares in the Northern Saloon
+Trust," said the doctor, with a little curl of his bearded lips.</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Mr. White hastily, "was a purely commercial&mdash;ah&mdash;affair. In
+business one must exploit even the&mdash;ah&mdash;sins and weaknesses of our
+fellows."</p>
+
+<p>"As to my scheme," said the doctor, changing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> subject, "I'm afraid I
+must ask you to invest in the dark. I can promise you that you will get
+your capital back a hundred times over. I realize that you have heard
+that sort of thing before, and that my suggestion has all the appearance
+of a confidence trick, except that I do not offer you even the
+substantial security of a gold brick. I may not use your money&mdash;I
+believe that I shall not. On the other hand, I may. If it is to be of
+any use to me it must be in my hands very soon&mdash;to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>He wandered restlessly about the room as he spoke, and jerked his
+sentences out now to Mr. White's face, now over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you this," he went on, "my scheme within the narrow
+interpretation of the law is illegal&mdash;don't mistake me, there is no
+danger to those who invest in ignorance. I will bear the full burden of
+responsibility. You can come in or you can stay out, but if you come in
+I shall ask you never to mention the name of the enterprise to a living
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"The Green Rust Syndicate?" whispered Mr. White fearfully. "What&mdash;ah&mdash;is
+Green Rust?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have offered the scheme to my&mdash;to a Government. But they are scared
+of touching it. Scared, by Jove!" He threw up his arms to the ceiling
+and his voice trembled with passion. "Germany scared! And there was a
+time when Europe cringed at the clank of the Prussian sword! When the
+lightest word of Potsdam set ministries trembling in Petrograd and
+London. You told me the other day you were a pacifist during the war and
+that you sympathized with Prussia in her humiliation. I am a Prussian,
+why should I deny it? I glory in the religion of might&mdash;I believe it
+were better that the old civilization were stamped into the mud of
+oblivion than that Prussian Kultur should be swept away by the
+licentious French, the mercenary English&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"British," murmured Mr. White.</p>
+
+<p>"And the dollar-hunting Yankees&mdash;but I'm making a fool of myself."</p>
+
+<p>With an effort he regained his calm.</p>
+
+<p>"The war's over and done with. As I say, I offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> my Government my
+secret. They thought it good but could not help me. They were afraid
+that the League would come to learn they were supporting it. They'll
+help me in other ways&mdash;innocent ways. If this scheme goes through they
+will put the full resources of the State at my disposal."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White rose, groped for his hat and cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr.&mdash;ah&mdash;van Heerden, you may be sure that I shall&mdash;ah&mdash;respect your
+confidence. With your very natural indignation I am in complete
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"But let us forget, ah&mdash;that you have spoken at all about the scheme in
+any detail&mdash;especially in so far as to its legality or otherwise. Let us
+forget, sir "&mdash;Mr. White thrust his hand into the bosom of his coat, an
+attitude he associated with the subtle rhetoric of statesmanship. "Let
+us forget all, save this, that you invite me to subscribe &pound;40,000 to a
+syndicate for&mdash;ah&mdash;let us say model dwellings for the working classes,
+and that I am willing to subscribe, and in proof of my willingness will
+send you by the night's post a cheque for that amount. Good night,
+doctor."</p>
+
+<p>He shook hands, pulled his hat down upon his head, opened the door and
+ran into the arms of a man whose hand was at that moment raised to press
+the electric bell-push by the side of the door.</p>
+
+<p>Both started back.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," mumbled Mr. White, and hurried down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden glared at the visitor, white with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, you fool!" he hissed, and half-dragged the man into his room,
+"what made you leave Scotland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scotland I hate!" said the visitor huskily. "Sticking a fellow away in
+the wilds of the beastly mountains, eh? That's not playing the game, my
+cheery sportsman."</p>
+
+<p>"When did you arrive?" asked van Heerden quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Seven p.m. Travelled third class! Me! Is it not the most absurd
+position for a man of my parts&mdash;third class, with foul and common
+people&mdash;I'd like to rip them all up&mdash;I would, by heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor surveyed the coarse, drink-bloated face,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> the loose, weak
+mouth, half-smiled at the vanity of the dangling monocle and pointed to
+the decanter.</p>
+
+<p>"You did wrong to come," he said, "I have arranged your passage to
+Canada next week."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not go!" said the man, tossing down a drink and wiping his lips
+with a not over-clean handkerchief. "Curse me, van Heerden, why should I
+hide and fly like a&mdash;a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Like a man who escaped from Cayenne," suggested the doctor, "or like a
+man who is wanted by the police of three countries for crimes ranging
+from arson to wilful murder."</p>
+
+<p>The man shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"All fair fights, my dear fellow," he said more mildly, "if I hadn't
+been a boastful, drunken sot, you wouldn't have heard of 'em&mdash;you
+wouldn't, curse you. I was mad! I had you in my hand like that!" He
+closed a not over-clean fist under van Heerden's nose. "I saw it all,
+all, I saw you bullying the poor devil, shaking some secret out of him,
+I saw you knife him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" hissed van Heerden. "You fool&mdash;people can hear through these
+walls."</p>
+
+<p>"But there are no windows to see through," leered the man, "and I <i>saw</i>!
+He came out of his death-trance to denounce you, by Jove! I heard him
+shout and I saw you run in and lay him down&mdash;lay him down! Lay him out
+is better! You killed him to shut his mouth, my bonnie doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden's face was as white as a sheet, but the hand he raised to
+his lips was without a tremor.</p>
+
+<p>"You were lucky to find me that night, dear lad," the man went on. "I
+was in a mind to split on you."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no cause to regret my finding you, Jackson," said the doctor.
+"I suppose you still call yourself by that name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Jackson," said the other promptly. "Jack&mdash;son, son of Jack. Fine
+name, eh&mdash;good enough for me and good enough for anybody else. Yes, you
+found me and done me well. I wish you hadn't. How I wish you hadn't."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>"Ungrateful fool!" said van Heerden. "I probably saved your life&mdash;hid
+you in Eastbourne, took you to London, whilst the police were searching
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"For me!" snarled the other. "A low trick, by the Everlasting
+Virtues&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be an idiot&mdash;whose word would they have taken, yours or mine? Now
+let's talk&mdash;on Thursday next you sail for Quebec...."</p>
+
+<p>He detailed his instructions at length and the man called Jackson,
+mellowed by repeated visits to the decanter, listened and even approved.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the hallway, behind the closed door, Oliva
+Cresswell, her dining-table covered with papers and books, was working
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>She was particularly anxious to show Mr. Beale a sample of her work in
+the morning and was making a fair copy of what she had described to him
+that afternoon as her "hotel list."</p>
+
+<p>"They are such queer names," she said; "there is one called Scobbs of
+Red Horse Valley&mdash;Scobbs!"</p>
+
+<p>He had laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Strangely enough, I know Mr. Scobbs, who is quite a personage in that
+part of the world. He owns a chain of hotels in Western Canada. You
+mustn't leave him out."</p>
+
+<p>Even had she wished to, or even had the name been overlooked once, she
+could not have escaped it. For Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of
+Scobbs' Hotel in Falling Star City; of the Bellevue in Snakefence, of
+the Palace Hotel in Portage.</p>
+
+<p>After awhile it began to lose its novelty and she accepted the discovery
+of unsuspected properties of Mr. Scobbs as inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>She filled in the last ruled sheet and blotted it, gathered the sheets
+together and fastened them with a clip.</p>
+
+<p>She yawned as she rose and realized that her previous night's sleep had
+been fitful.</p>
+
+<p>She wondered as she began to undress if she would dream of Scobbs
+or&mdash;no, she didn't want to dream of big-headed men with white faces, and
+the thought awoke a doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> in her mind. Had she bolted the door of the
+flat? She went along the passage in her stockinged feet, shot the bolts
+smoothly and was aware of voices outside. They came to her clearly
+through the ventilator above the fanlight.</p>
+
+<p>She heard the doctor say something and then a voice which she had not
+heard before.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry&mdash;I've a wonderful memory, by Jove!..."</p>
+
+<p>The murmur of the doctor did not reach her, but&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes ... Scobbs' Hotel, Red Horse Valley ... know the place well
+... good night, dear old thing...."</p>
+
+<p>A door banged, an uncertain footstep died away in the well of the stairs
+below, and she was left to recover from her amazement.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>PLAIN WORDS FROM MR. BEALE</h3>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell did not feel at all sleepy, so she discovered, by the
+time she was ready for bed. To retire in that condition of wakefulness
+meant another sleepless night, and she slipped a kimono over her, found
+a book and settled into the big wicker-chair under the light for the
+half-hour's reading which would reduce her to the necessary state of
+drowsiness. The book at any other time would have held her attention,
+but now she found her thoughts wandering. On the other side of the wall
+(she regarded it with a new interest) was the young man who had so
+strangely intruded himself into her life. Or was he out? What would a
+man like that do with his evenings? He was not the sort of person who
+could find any pleasure in making a round of music-halls or sitting up
+half the night in a card-room.</p>
+
+<p>She heard a dull knock, and it came from the wall.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Beale was at home then, he had pushed a chair against the wall, or
+he was knocking in nails at this hour of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Thud&mdash;thud&mdash;thud"&mdash;a pause&mdash;"thud, tap, thud, tap."</p>
+
+<p>The dull sound was as if made by a fist, the tap by a finger-tip.</p>
+
+<p>It was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the girl jumped up with a little laugh. He was signalling to
+her and had sent "O.C."&mdash;her initials.</p>
+
+<p>She tapped three times with her finger, struck once with the flat of her
+hand and tapped again. She had sent the "Understood" message.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he began and she jotted the message on the margin of her book.</p>
+
+<p>"Most urgent: Don't use soap. Bring it to office."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled faintly. She expected something more brilliant in the way of
+humour even from Mr. Beale. She tapped "acknowledged" and went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda, my innocent child," she said to herself, as she snuggled up
+under the bed-clothes, "exchanging midnight signals with a lodger is
+neither proper nor lady-like."</p>
+
+<p>She had agreed with herself that in spite of the latitude she was
+allowed in the matter of office hours, that she would put in an
+appearance punctually at ten. This meant rising not later than eight,
+for she had her little household to put in order before she left.</p>
+
+<p>It was the postman's insistent knocking at eight-thirty that woke her
+from a dreamless sleep, and, half-awake, she dragged herself into her
+dressing-gown and went to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Parcel, miss," said the invisible official, and put into the hand that
+came round the edge of the door a letter and a small package. She
+brought them to the sitting-room and pulled back the curtains. The
+letter was type-written and was on the note-paper of a well-known firm
+of perfumers. It was addressed to "Miss Olivia Cresswell," and ran:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Madame</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We have pleasure in sending you for your use a sample cake of our
+new Complexion Soap, which we trust will meet with your approval."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"But how nice," she said, and wondered why she had been singled out for
+the favour. She opened the package. In a small carton, carefully wrapped
+in the thinnest of paper, was an oval tablet of lavender-coloured soap
+that exhaled a delicate fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>"But how nice," she said again, and put the gift in the bath-room.</p>
+
+<p>This was starting the day well&mdash;a small enough foundation for happiness,
+yet one which every woman knows, for happiness is made up of small and
+acceptable things and, given the psychological moment, a bunch of
+primroses has a greater value than a rope of pearls.</p>
+
+<p>In her bath she picked up the soap and dropped it back in the tidy again
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't use soap; bring it to office."</p>
+
+<p>She remembered the message in a flash. Beale had known that this parcel
+was coming then, and his "most urgent" warning was not a joke. She
+dressed quickly, made a poor breakfast and was at the office ten minutes
+before the hour.</p>
+
+<p>She found her employer waiting, sitting in his accustomed place on the
+edge of the table in her office. He gave her a little nod of welcome,
+and without a word stretched out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"The soap?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>She opened her bag.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," he said. "I see you have kept the wrappings, and that, I
+presume, is the letter which accompanied the&mdash;what shall I say&mdash;gift?
+Don't touch it with your bare hand," he said quickly. "Handle it with
+the paper."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled his gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then took the
+cake of soap in his hand and carried it to the light, smelt it and
+returned it to its paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me see the letter."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p><p>She handed it to him, and he read it.</p>
+
+<p>"From Brandan, the perfumers. They wouldn't be in it, but we had better
+make sure."</p>
+
+<p>He walked to the telephone and gave a number, and the girl heard him
+speaking in a low tone to somebody at the other end. Presently he put
+down the receiver and walked back, his hands thrust into his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"They know nothing about this act of generosity," he said.</p>
+
+<p>By this time she had removed her coat and hat and hung them up, and had
+taken her place at her desk. She sat with her elbows on the
+blotting-pad, her chin on her clasped hands, looking up at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it's fair that things should be kept from me any longer,"
+she said. "Many mysterious things have happened in the past few days,
+and since they have all directly affected me, I think I am entitled to
+some sort of explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but
+I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell
+you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would
+have been covered from head to foot in a rather alarming and irritating
+rash."</p>
+
+<p>She gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"But who dared to send me this?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows? But first let me ask you this, Miss Cresswell. Suppose
+to-night when you had looked at yourself in the glass you had discovered
+your face was covered with red blotches and, on further examination, you
+found your arms and, indeed, the whole of your body similarly
+disfigured, what would you have done?"</p>
+
+<p>She thought for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, I should have sent for the doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"Which doctor?" he asked carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor van Heerden&mdash;oh!" She looked at him resentfully. "You don't
+suggest that Doctor van Heerden sent that hideous thing to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suggest anything," said Mr. Beale coolly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p><p>"I merely say that you would have sent for a doctor, and that that
+doctor would have been Doctor van Heerden. I say further, that he would
+have come to you and been very sympathetic, and would have ordered you
+to remain in bed for four or five days. I think, too," he said, looking
+up at the ceiling and speaking slowly, as though he were working out the
+possible consequence in his mind, "that he would have given you some
+very palatable medicine."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you insinuating?" she asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>He did not reply immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will get out of your mind the idea that I have any particular
+grievance against Doctor van Heerden, that I regard him as a rival, a
+business rival let us say, or that I have some secret grudge against
+him, and if in place of that suspicion you would believe that I am
+serving a much larger interest than is apparent to you, I think we might
+discuss"&mdash;he smiled&mdash;"even Doctor van Heerden without such a discussion
+giving offence to you."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am really not offended. I am rather distressed, if anything," she
+said, knitting her brows. "You see, Doctor van Heerden has always been
+most kind to me."</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"He got you your rooms at the flats," he replied quietly; "he was also
+ready to give you employment the moment you were providentially
+discharged from Punsonby's. Does it not strike you, Miss Cresswell, that
+every kind act of Doctor van Heerden's has had a tendency to bring you
+together, into closer association, I mean? Does it not appear to you
+that the net result of all the things that might have happened to you in
+the past few days would have been to make you more and more dependent
+upon Doctor van Heerden? For example, if you had gone into his employ as
+he planned that you should?"</p>
+
+<p>"Planned!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>His face was grave now and the laughter had gone out of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Planned," he said quietly. "You were discharged from Punsonby's at
+Doctor van Heerden's instigation."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not believe it!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>"That will not make it any less the fact," said Mr. Beale. "You were
+nearly arrested&mdash;again at Doctor van Heerden's instigation. He was
+waiting for you when you came back from Punsonby's, ready to offer you
+his job. When he discovered you had already engaged yourself he
+telephoned to White, instructing him to have you arrested so that you
+might be disgraced and might turn to him, your one loyal friend."</p>
+
+<p>She listened speechless. She could only stare at him and could not even
+interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly
+that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed
+her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was at
+least probability.</p>
+
+<p>"I suggest even more," Beale went on. "I suggest that for some purpose,
+Doctor van Heerden desires to secure a mental, physical and moral
+ascendancy over you. In other words, he wishes to enslave you to his
+will."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him in wonder and burst into a peal of ringing laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Mr. Beale, you are too absurd," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't I?" he smiled. "It sounds like something out of a melodrama."</p>
+
+<p>"Why on earth should he want to secure a mental ascendancy over me? Do
+you suggest&mdash;&mdash;" She flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"I suggest nothing any longer," said Beale, slipping off from the end of
+the table. "I merely make a statement of fact. I do not think he has any
+designs on you, within the conventional meaning of that phrase, indeed,
+I think he wants to marry you&mdash;what do you think about that?"</p>
+
+<p>She had recovered something of her poise, and her sense of humour was
+helping her out of a situation which, without such a gift, might have
+been an embarrassing one.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you have been seeing too many plays and reading too many
+exciting books, Mr. Beale," she said, "I confess I have never regarded
+Doctor van Heerden as a possible suitor, and if I thought he was I
+should be immensely flattered. But may I suggest to you that there are
+other ways of winning a girl than by giving her nettle-rash!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p><p>They laughed together.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said, swinging up his hat, "proceed with the good work
+and seek out the various domiciles of Mr. Scobbs."</p>
+
+<p>Then she remembered.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>He was at the door when she spoke and he stopped and turned.</p>
+
+<p>"The name of Mr. Scobbs gives me a cold shiver."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me this," she said: "why should I who have never heard of him
+before until yesterday hear his name mentioned by a perfect stranger?"</p>
+
+<p>The smile died away from his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Who mentioned him! No, it isn't idle curiosity," he said in face of her
+derisive finger. "I am really serious. Who mentioned his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"A visitor of Doctor van Heerden's. I heard them talking through the
+ventilator when I was bolting my door."</p>
+
+<p>"A visitor to Doctor van Heerden, and he mentioned Mr. Scobbs of Red
+Horse Valley," he said half to himself. "You didn't see the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You just heard him. No names were mentioned?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," she said. "Is it a frightfully important matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather," he replied. "We have got to get busy," and with this
+cryptic remark he left her.</p>
+
+<p>The day passed as quickly as its predecessor. The tabulation at which
+she was working grew until by the evening there was a pile of sheets in
+the left-hand cupboard covered with her fine writing. She might have
+done more but for the search she had to make for a missing report to
+verify one of her facts. It was not on the shelf, and she was about to
+abandon her search and postpone the confirmation till she saw Beale,
+when she noticed a cupboard beneath the shelves. It was unlocked and she
+opened it and found, as she had expected, that it was full of books,
+amongst which was the missing documentation she sought.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>With a view to future contingencies, she examined the contents of the
+cupboard and was arrested by a thin volume which bore no inscription or
+title on its blank cover. She opened it, and on the title page read:
+"The Millinborn Murder." The author's name was not given and the
+contents were made up of very careful analysis of evidence given by the
+various witnesses at the inquest, and plans and diagrams with little red
+crosses to show where every actor in that tragedy had been.</p>
+
+<p>She read the first page idly and turned it. She was half-way down the
+second page when she uttered a little exclamation, for a familiar name
+was there, the name of Dr. van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>Fascinated, she read the story to the end, half-expecting that the name
+of Mr. Beale would occur.</p>
+
+<p>There were many names all unknown to her and one that occurred with the
+greatest frequency was that of James Kitson. Mr. Beale did not appear to
+have played any part. She read for an hour, sitting on the floor by the
+cupboard. She reached the last page, closed the book and slipped it back
+in the cupboard. She wondered why Beale had preserved this record and
+whether his antagonism to the doctor was founded on that case. At first
+she thought she identified him with the mysterious man who had appeared
+in the plantation before the murder, but a glance back at the
+description of the stranger dispelled that idea. For all the reputation
+he had, Mr. Beale did not have "an inflamed, swollen countenance,
+colourless bloodshot eyes," nor was he bald.</p>
+
+<p>She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed her work to be
+interrupted, and in penance decided to remain on until six instead of
+five o'clock as she had intended. Besides, she half expected that Mr.
+Beale would return, and was surprised to discover that she was
+disappointed that he had not.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock she dismissed the boy, closed and locked the office, and
+made her way downstairs into the crowded street.</p>
+
+<p>To her surprise she heard her name spoken, and turned to face Dr. van
+Heerden.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p><p>"I have been waiting for you for nearly an hour," he said with
+good-humoured reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"And your patients are probably dying like flies," she countered.</p>
+
+<p>It was in her mind to make some excuse and go home alone, but curiosity
+got the better of her and impelled her to wait to discover the object of
+this unexpected visitation.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know where I was working?" she asked, as the thought
+occurred to her.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very simple matter. I was on my way to a patient and I saw you
+coming out to lunch," he said, "and as I found myself in the
+neighbourhood an hour ago I thought I would wait and take you home. You
+are doing a very foolish thing," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean&mdash;in stopping to talk to you when I ought to be on my
+way home to tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, in engaging yourself to a man like Beale. You know the reputation
+he has! My dear girl, I was shocked when I discovered who your employer
+was."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you need distress yourself on my account, doctor," she
+said quietly. "Really, Mr. Beale is quite pleasant&mdash;in his lucid
+moments," she smiled to herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was not being disloyal to her employer. If he chose to encourage
+suspicion in his mode of life he must abide by the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"But a drunkard, faugh!" The exquisite doctor shivered. "I have always
+tried to be a friend of yours, Miss Cresswell, and I hope you are going
+to let me continue to be, and my advice to you in that capacity is&mdash;give
+Mr. Beale notice."</p>
+
+<p>"How absurd you are!" she laughed. "There is no reason in the world why
+I should do anything of the sort. Mr. Beale has treated me with the
+greatest consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"What is he, by the way?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"He's an agent of some sort," said the girl, "but I am sure you don't
+want me to discuss his business. And now I must go, doctor, if you will
+excuse me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p><p>"One moment," he begged. "I have a cab here. Won't you come and have
+tea somewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is somewhere?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Alliance?" he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE</h3>
+
+<p>The hotel and the caf&eacute; of the Grand Alliance was London's newest
+rendezvous. Its great palm-court was crowded at the tea-hour and if, as
+the mysterious Mr. Beale had hinted, any danger was to be apprehended
+from Dr. van Heerden, it could not come to her in that most open of
+public places.</p>
+
+<p>She had no fear, but that eighth sense of armed caution, which is the
+possession of every girl who has to work for her living and is conscious
+of the perils which await her on every side, reviewed with lightning
+speed all the possibilities and gave her the passport of approval.</p>
+
+<p>It was later than she had thought. Only a few tables were occupied, but
+he had evidently reserved one, for immediately on his appearance the
+waiter with a smirk led him to one of the alcoves and pulled back a
+chair for the girl. She looked round as she stripped her gloves. The
+place was not unfamiliar to her. It was here she came at rare intervals,
+when her finances admitted of such an hilarious recreation, to find
+comfort for jangled nerves, to sit and sip her tea to the sound of
+violins and watch the happy crowd at her leisure, absorbing something of
+the happiness they diffused.</p>
+
+<p>The palm-court was a spacious marble hall, a big circle of polished
+pillars supporting the dome, through the tinted glass of which the light
+was filtered in soft hues upon the marble floor below.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p><p>"Doctor," she said, suddenly remembering, "I have been reading quite a
+lot about you to-day."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"About me?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, smiling mischievously.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know that you were such a famous person&mdash;I have been reading
+about the Millinborn murder."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been reading about the Millinborn murder?" he said steadily,
+looking into her eyes. "An unpleasant case and one I should like to
+forget."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was awfully thrilling," she said. "It read like a
+detective story without a satisfactory end."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"What a perfectly gruesome subject for tea-table talk," he said lightly,
+and beckoned the head-waiter. "You are keeping us waiting, Jaques."</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor, it will be but a few minutes," pleaded the waiter, and then in
+a low voice, which was not so low that it did not reach the girl. "We
+have had some trouble this afternoon, doctor, with your friend."</p>
+
+<p>"My friend?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked up sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Whom do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Mr. Jackson."</p>
+
+<p>"Jackson," said the doctor, startled. "I thought he had left."</p>
+
+<p>"He was to leave this morning by the ten o'clock train, but he had a
+fainting-fit. We recovered him with brandy and he was too well, for this
+afternoon he faint again."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he now?" asked van Heerden, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"In his room, monsieur. To-night he leave for Ireland&mdash;this he tell
+me&mdash;to catch the mail steamer at Queenstown."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let him know I am here," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the girl with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he
+faints."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> little attacks are
+not serious&mdash;he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of
+over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."</p>
+
+<p>She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So
+that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to
+Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her
+information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have
+mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I
+know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now,
+I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"&mdash;he leant across the table and
+spoke in a lower tone&mdash;"something that I have never told to a human
+being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that
+Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in
+this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you
+have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson
+when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the
+heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by
+this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw
+anything, but later he may change his tune."</p>
+
+<p>A light dawned upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police
+searching for Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should
+find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am
+sending Mr. Jackson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of
+mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."</p>
+
+<p>He met her eyes unfalteringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red
+Horse Valley."</p>
+
+<p>He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment
+was inarticulate.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what do you know?" he asked incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at
+the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had
+created.</p>
+
+<p>"I only know that I heard Mr. Jackson through the ventilator of my flat,
+saying good-bye to you the other night. He mentioned Red Horse
+Valley&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He drew a deep breath and was master of himself again, but his face was
+still pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that," he said, "that is a polite fiction. Jackson knows of this
+inebriates' home in Ontario and I had to provide him with a destination.
+He will go no farther than&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, curse my life, if it isn't the doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the raucous voice both looked up. The man called Jackson
+had hailed them from the centre of the hall. He was well dressed, but no
+tailor could compensate for the repulsiveness of that puckered and
+swollen face, those malignant eyes which peered out into the world
+through two slits. He was wearing his loud-check suit, his new hat was
+in his hand and the conical-shaped dome of his head glistened baldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm cursed if this isn't amiable of you, doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>He did not look at the girl, but grinned complacently upon her angry
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am "&mdash;he threw out his arms with an extravagant
+gesture&mdash;"leaving the country of my adoption, if not birth, without one
+solitary soul to see me off or take farewell of me. I, who have
+been&mdash;well, you know, what I've been, van Heerden. The world has treated
+me very badly. By heaven! I'd like to come back a billionaire and ruin
+all of 'em. I'd like to cut their throats and amputate 'em limb from
+limb, I would like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p>"Be silent!" said van Heerden angrily. "Have you no decency? Do you not
+realize I am with a lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon." The man called Jackson leapt up from the chair into which he
+had fallen and bowed extravagantly in the direction of the girl. "I
+cannot see your face because of your hat, my dear lady," he said
+gallantly, "but I am sure my friend van Heerden, whose taste&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be quiet?" said van Heerden. "Go to your room and I will come
+up to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to my room!" scoffed the other. "By Jove! I like that! That any
+whipper-snapper of a sawbones should tell me to go to my room. After
+what I have been, after the position I have held in society. I have had
+ambassadors' carriages at my door, my dear fellow, princes of the royal
+blood, and to be told to go to my room like a naughty little boy! It's
+too much!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then behave yourself," said van Heerden, "and at least wait until I am
+free before you approach me again."</p>
+
+<p>But the man showed no inclination to move; rather did this rebuff
+stimulate his power of reminiscence.</p>
+
+<p>"Ignore me, miss&mdash;I have not your name, but I am sure it is a noble
+one," he said. "You see before you one who in his time has been a squire
+of dames, by Jove! I can't remember 'em. They must number thousands and
+only one of them was worth two sous. Yes," he shook his head in
+melancholy, "only one of 'em. By Jove! The rest were"&mdash;he snapped his
+fingers&mdash;"that for 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl listened against her will.</p>
+
+<p>"Jackson!"&mdash;and van Heerden's voice trembled with passion&mdash;"will you go
+or must I force you to go?"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson rose with a loud laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently I am <i>de trop</i>," he said with heavy sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>He held out a swollen hand which van Heerden ignored.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, mademoiselle." He thrust the hand forward, so that she could
+not miss it.</p>
+
+<p>She took it, a cold flabby thing which sent a shudder of loathing
+through her frame, and raised her face to his for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>He let the hand drop. He was staring at her with open mouth and features
+distorted with horror.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>"You!" he croaked.</p>
+
+<p>She shrunk back against the wall of the alcove, but he made no movement.
+She sensed the terror and agony in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" he gasped. "Mary!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang you! Go!" roared van Heerden, and thrust him back.</p>
+
+<p>But though he staggered back a pace under the weight of the other's arm,
+his eyes did not leave the girl's face, and she, fascinated by the
+appeal in the face of the wreck, could not turn hers away.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary!" he whispered, "what is your other name?"</p>
+
+<p>With an effort the girl recovered herself.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is not Mary," she said quietly. "My name is Oliva Cresswell."</p>
+
+<p>"Oliva Cresswell," he repeated. "Oliva Cresswell!"</p>
+
+<p>He made a movement toward her but van Heerden barred his way. She heard
+Jackson say something in a strangled voice and heard van Heerden's sharp
+"What!" and there was a fierce exchange of words.</p>
+
+<p>The attention of the few people in the palm-court had been attracted to
+the unusual spectacle of two men engaged in what appeared to be a
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, sit down, you fool! Sit over there. I will come to you in a
+minute. Can you swear what you say is true?"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson nodded. He was shaking from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Pr&eacute;deaux," he said; "that is my daughter&mdash;I married in the
+name of Cresswell. My daughter," he repeated. "How wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" asked van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>He had half-led, half-pushed the other to a chair near one of the
+pillars of the rotunda.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to tell her," said the wreck. "What are you doing with her?"
+he demanded fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"That is no business of yours," replied van Heerden sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"No business of mine, eh! I'll show you it's some business of mine. I am
+going to tell her all I know about you. I have been a rotter and worse
+than a rotter." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> old flippancy had gone and the harsh voice was
+vibrant with purpose. "My path has been littered with the wrecks of
+human lives," he said bitterly, "and they are mostly women. I broke the
+heart of the best woman in the world, and I am going to see that you
+don't break the heart of her daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be quiet?" hissed van Heerden. "I will go and get her away and
+then I will come back to you."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson did not reply. He sat huddled up in his chair, muttering to
+himself, and van Heerden walked quickly back to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I shall have to let you go back by yourself. He is having
+one of his fits. I think it is delirium tremens."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you had better send for&mdash;&mdash;" she began. She was going
+to say "send for a doctor," and the absurdity of the request struck her.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had better go," he said hastily, with a glance at the man
+who was struggling to his feet. "I can't tell you how sorry I am that
+we've had this scene."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!"&mdash;it was Jackson's voice.</p>
+
+<p>He stood swaying half-way between the chair he had left and the alcove,
+and his trembling finger was pointing at them.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" he said in a commanding voice. "Stop! I've got something to say
+to you. I know ... he's making you pay for the Green Rust...."</p>
+
+<p>So far he got when he reeled and collapsed in a heap on the floor. The
+doctor sprang forward, lifted him and carried him to the chair by the
+pillar. He picked up the overcoat that the man had been wearing and
+spread it over him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fainting-fit, nothing to be alarmed about," he said to the
+little knot of people from the tables who had gathered about the limp
+figure. "Jaques"&mdash;he called the head-waiter&mdash;"get some brandy, he must
+be kept warm."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I ring for an ambulance, m'sieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not necessary," said van Heerden. "He will recover in a few
+moments. Just leave him," and he walked back to the alcove.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p><p>"Who is he?" asked the girl, and her voice was shaking in spite of
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a man I knew in his better days," said van Heerden, "and now I
+think you must go."</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather wait to see if he recovers," she said with some
+obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to go," he said earnestly; "you would please me very much if
+you would do as I ask."</p>
+
+<p>"There's the waiter!" she interrupted, "he has the brandy. Won't you
+give it to him?"</p>
+
+<p>It was the doctor who in the presence of the assembled visitors
+dissolved a white pellet in the brandy before he forced the clenched
+teeth apart and poured the liquor to the last drop down the man's
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>Jackson or Pr&eacute;deaux, to give him his real name, shuddered as he drank,
+shuddered again a few seconds later and then went suddenly limp.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor bent down and lifted his eyelid.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid&mdash;he is dead," he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" the girl stared at him. "Oh no! Not dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Heart failure," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"The same kind of heart failure that killed John Millinborn," said a
+voice behind him. "The cost of the Green Rust is totalling up, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>The girl swung round. Mr. Beale was standing at her elbow, but his
+steady eyes were fixed upon van Heerden.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A CRIME AGAINST THE WORLD</h3>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Dr. van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"I merely repeat the words of the dead man," answered Beale, "heart
+failure!"</p>
+
+<p>He picked up from the table the leather case which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> the doctor had taken
+from his pocket. There were four little phials and one of these was
+uncorked.</p>
+
+<p>"Digitalis!" he read. "That shouldn't kill him, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at van Heerden thoughtfully, then picked up the phial again.
+It bore the label of a well-known firm of wholesale chemists, and the
+seal had apparently been broken for the first time when van Heerden
+opened the tiny bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"You have sent for the police?" Beale asked the agitated manager.</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, m'sieur&mdash;directly. They come now, I think."</p>
+
+<p>He walked to the vestibule to meet three men in plain clothes who had
+just come through the swing-doors. There was something about van
+Heerden's attitude which struck Beale as strange. He was standing in the
+exact spot he had stood when the detective had addressed him. It seemed
+as if something rooted him to the spot. He did not move even when the
+ambulance men were lifting the body nor when the police were taking
+particulars of the circumstances of the death. And Beale, escorting the
+shaken girl up the broad staircase to a room where she could rest and
+recover, looked back over his shoulder and saw him still standing, his
+head bent, his fingers smoothing his beard.</p>
+
+<p>"It was dreadful, dreadful," said the girl with a shiver. "I have never
+seen anybody&mdash;die. It was awful."</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded. His thoughts were set on the doctor. Why had he stood so
+motionless? He was not the kind of man to be shocked by so normal a
+phenomenon as death. He was a doctor and such sights were common to him.
+What was the reason for this strange paralysis which kept him chained to
+the spot even after the body had been removed?</p>
+
+<p>The girl was talking, but he did not hear her. He knew instinctively
+that in van Heerden's curious attitude was a solution of Pr&eacute;deaux's
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me a moment," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He passed with rapid strides from the room, down the broad stairway and
+into the palm-court.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>Van Heerden had gone.</p>
+
+<p>The explanation flashed upon him and he hurried to the spot where the
+doctor had stood.</p>
+
+<p>On the tessellated floor was a little patch no bigger than a saucer
+which had been recently washed.</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned the manager.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has been cleaning this tile?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The manager shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the doctor, sare&mdash;so eccentric! He call for a glass of water and
+he dip his handkerchief in and then lift up his foot and with rapidity
+incredible he wash the floor with his handkerchief!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fool!" snapped Beale. "Oh, hopeless fool!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sare!" said the startled manager.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, M'sieur Barri," smiled Beale ruefully. "I was
+addressing myself&mdash;oh, what a fool I've been!"</p>
+
+<p>He went down on his knees and examined the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"I want this tile, don't let anybody touch it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, van Heerden had stood because under his foot he had crushed
+the digitalis tablet he had taken from the phial, and for which he had
+substituted something more deadly. Had he moved, the powdered tablet
+would have been seen. It was simple&mdash;horribly simple.</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly back to where he had left Oliva.</p>
+
+<p>What followed seemed ever after like a bad dream to the girl. She was
+stunned by the tragedy which had happened under her eyes and could offer
+no evidence which in any way assisted the police in their subsequent
+investigation, the sum of which was ably set forth in the columns of the
+<i>Post Record</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The tragedy which occurred in the Palm-Court of the Grand Alliance
+Hotel yesterday must be added to the already long list of London's
+unravelled mysteries. The deceased, a man named Jackson, has been
+staying at the hotel for a week and was on the point of departure
+for Canada. At the last moment Dr. van Heerden, who was assisting
+the unfortunate man, discovered that Jackson was no other than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+wanted man in the Millinborn murder, a crime which most of our
+readers will recall.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. van Heerden stated to our representative that the man had
+represented that he was a friend of the late John Millinborn, but
+was anxious to get to Canada. He had produced excellent
+credentials, and Dr. van Heerden, in a spirit of generosity,
+offered to assist him. At the eleventh hour, however, he was struck
+with the likeness the man bore to the published description of the
+missing man in the Millinborn case, and was on the point of
+telegraphing to the authorities at Liverpool, when he discovered
+that Jackson had missed the train.</p>
+
+<p>"The present tragedy points to suicide. The man, it will be
+remembered, collapsed, and Dr. van Heerden rendered first aid,
+administering to the man a perfectly harmless drug. The post-mortem
+examination reveals the presence in the body of a considerable
+quantity of cyanide of potassium, and the police theory is that
+this was self-administered before the collapse. In the man's pocket
+was discovered a number of cyanide tablets.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am satisfied,' said Dr. van Heerden, 'that the man already
+contemplated the deed, and when I voiced my suspicions in the
+palm-court he decided upon the action. The presence in his pocket
+of cyanide&mdash;one of the deadliest and quickest of poisons&mdash;suggests
+that he had the project in his mind. I did not see his action or,
+of course, I should have stopped him!'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell read this account in her room two nights following the
+tragedy and was struck by certain curious inaccuracies, if all that the
+doctor had told her was true.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale read the account, smiled across the table grimly to the
+bearded superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department.</p>
+
+<p>"How does that strike you for ingenuity?" he said, pushing the paper
+over the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I have read it," said the other laconically, "I think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> we have
+sufficient evidence to arrest van Heerden. The tile from the Grand
+Alliance shows traces of digitalis."</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"The case would fall," he said. "What evidence have you? We did not
+confiscate his medicine-case. He might have dropped a tablet of
+digitalis by accident. The only evidence you could convict van Heerden
+on is proof that he brought with him cyanide tablets which he slipped
+into Pr&eacute;deaux's pocket. No, we can prove nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your theory in connection with the crime?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have many theories," said Mr. Beale, rising and pacing the room, "and
+one certainty. I am satisfied that Millinborn was killed by Doctor van
+Heerden. He was killed because, during the absence of Mr. Kitson in the
+village, the doctor forced from the dying man a secret which up till
+then he had jealously preserved. When Kitson returned he found his
+friend, as he thought, <i>in extremis</i>, and van Heerden also thought that
+John Millinborn would not speak again. To his surprise Millinborn did
+speak and van Heerden, fearful of having his villainy exposed, stabbed
+him to the heart under the pretext of assisting him to lie down.</p>
+
+<p>"Something different occurred at the Grand Alliance Hotel. A man swoons,
+immediately he is picked up by the doctor, who gives him a harmless
+drug&mdash;that is to say, harmless in small quantities. In five seconds the
+man is dead. At the inquest we find he has been poisoned&mdash;cyanide is
+found in his pocket. And who is this man? Obviously the identical person
+who witnessed the murder of John Millinborn and whom we have been trying
+to find ever since that crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Van Heerden won't escape the third time. His presence will be a little
+more than a coincidence," said the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>Beale laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no third time," he said shortly, "van Heerden is not a
+fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any idea what the secret was that he wanted to get from old
+Millinborn?" asked the detective.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p><p>Beale nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know pretty well," he said, "and in course of time you will
+know, too."</p>
+
+<p>The detective was glancing over the newspaper account.</p>
+
+<p>"I see the jury returned a verdict of 'Suicide whilst of unsound mind!'"
+he said. "This case ought to injure van Heerden, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"That is where you are wrong," said Beale, stopping in his stride, "van
+Heerden has so man&oelig;uvred the Pressmen that he comes out with an
+enhanced reputation. You will probably find articles in the weekly
+papers written and signed by him, giving his views on the indiscriminate
+sale of poisons. He will move in a glamour of romance, and his
+consulting-rooms will be thronged by new admirers."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a rum case," said the superintendent, rising, "and if you don't
+mind my saying so, Mr. Beale, you're one of the rummiest men that figure
+in it. I can't quite make you out. You are not a policeman and yet we
+have orders from the Foreign Office to give you every assistance. What's
+the game?"</p>
+
+<p>"The biggest game in the world," said Beale promptly, "a game which, if
+it succeeds, will bring misery and suffering to thousands, and will
+bring great businesses tumbling, and set you and your children and your
+children's children working for hundreds of years to pay off a new
+national debt."</p>
+
+<p>"Man alive!" said the other, "are you serious?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I was never more serious in my life," he said, "that is why I don't
+want the police to be too inquisitive in regard to this murder of
+Jackson, whose real name, as I say, is Pr&eacute;deaux. I can tell you this,
+chief, that you are seeing the development of the most damnable plot
+that has ever been hatched in the brain of the worst miscreant that
+history knows. Sit down again. Do you know what happened last year?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Last year?" said the superintendent. "Why, the war ended last year."</p>
+
+<p>"The war ended, Germany was beaten, and had to accept terms humiliating
+for a proud nation, but fortunately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> for her Prussia was not proud, she
+was merely arrogant. Her worst blow was the impoverishing conditions
+which the Entente Powers imposed. That is to say, they demanded certain
+concessions of territory and money which, added to the enormous interest
+of war stock which the Germans had to pay, promised to cripple Prussia
+for a hundred years."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the detective, when the other had stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" repeated Beale, with a hard little smile. "Germany is going to
+get that money back."</p>
+
+<p>"War?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nothing so foolish as war. Germany has had all the war she wants.
+Oh no, there'll be no war. Do you imagine that we should go to war
+because I came to the Foreign Office with a crazy story. I can tell you
+this, that officially the German Government have no knowledge of this
+plot and are quite willing to repudiate those people who are engaged in
+it. Indeed, if the truth be told, the Government has not contributed a
+single mark to bring the scheme to fruition, but when it is working all
+the money required will be instantly found. At present the inventor of
+this delightful little scheme finds himself with insufficient capital to
+go ahead. It is his intention to secure that capital. There are many
+ways by which this can be done. He has already borrowed &pound;40,000 from
+White, of Punsonby's."</p>
+
+<p>Superintendent McNorton whistled.</p>
+
+<p>"There are other ways," Beale went on, "and he is at liberty to try them
+all except one. The day he secures control of that fortune, that day I
+shoot him."</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce you will?" said the startled Mr. McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce I will," repeated Beale.</p>
+
+<p>There was a tap at the door and McNorton rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go," said Beale, "I would like to introduce you to this
+gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door and a grey-haired man with a lean, ascetic face came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Beale closed the door behind him and led the way to the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>"Mr. Kitson, I should like you to know Superintendent McNorton."</p>
+
+<p>The two men shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Kitson, "our medical friend seems to have got away with
+it." He sat at the table, nervously drumming with his fingers. "Does the
+superintendent know everything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly everything," replied Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly everything," repeated the superintendent with a smile, "except
+this great Green Rust business. There I admit I am puzzled."</p>
+
+<p>"Even I know nothing about that," said Kitson, looking curiously at
+Beale. "I suppose one of these days you will tell us all about it. It is
+a discovery Mr. Beale happed upon whilst he was engaged in protecting
+Miss&mdash;&mdash;" He looked at Beale and Beale nodded&mdash;"Miss Cresswell," said
+Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady who was present at the murder of Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no reason why we should not take you into our confidence, the
+more so since the necessity for secrecy is rapidly passing. Miss Oliva
+Cresswell is the niece of John Millinborn. Her mother married a scamp
+who called himself Cresswell but whose real name was Pr&eacute;deaux. He first
+spent every penny she had and then left her and her infant child."</p>
+
+<p>"Pr&eacute;deaux!" cried the detective. "Why you told me that was Jackson's
+real name."</p>
+
+<p>"Jackson, or Pr&eacute;deaux, was her father," said Kitson, "it was believed
+that he was dead; but after John Millinborn's death I set inquiries on
+foot and discovered that he had been serving a life sentence in Cayenne
+and had been released when the French President proclaimed a general
+amnesty at the close of the war. He was evidently on his way to see John
+Millinborn the day my unhappy friend was murdered, and it was the
+recognition of his daughter in the palm-court of the Grand Alliance
+which produced a fainting-fit to which he was subject."</p>
+
+<p>"But how could he recognize the daughter? Had he seen her before?"</p>
+
+<p>For answer Kitson took from his pocket a leather folder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> and opened it.
+There were two photographs. One of a beautiful woman in the fashion of
+25 years before; and one a snapshot of a girl in a modern costume, whom
+McNorton had no difficulty in recognizing as Oliva Cresswell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "they might be the same person."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the mother on the left," explained Kitson, "the resemblance is
+remarkable. When Jackson saw the girl he called her Mary&mdash;that was his
+wife's name. Millinborn left the whole of his fortune to Miss Cresswell,
+but he placed upon me a solemn charge that she was not to benefit or to
+know of her inheritance until she was married. He had a horror of
+fortune-hunters. This was the secret which van Heerden surprised&mdash;I fear
+with violence&mdash;from poor John as he lay dying. Since then he has been
+plotting to marry the girl. To do him justice, I believe that the
+cold-blooded hound has no other wish than to secure her money. His
+acquaintance with White, who is on the verge of ruin, enabled him to get
+to know the girl. He persuaded her to come here and a flat was found for
+her. Partly," said the lawyer dryly, "because this block of flats
+happens to be her own property and the lady who is supposed to be the
+landlady is a nominee of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose that explains Mr. Beale," smiled the inspector.</p>
+
+<p>"That explains Mr. Beale," said Kitson, "whom I brought from New York
+especially to shadow van Heerden and to protect the girl. In the course
+of investigations Mr. Beale has made another discovery, the particulars
+of which I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not tell the girl?" said the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought it out, and to tell the girl would be tantamount to
+breaking my faith with John Millinborn. No, I must simply shepherd her.
+The first step we must take"&mdash;he turned to Beale&mdash;"is to get her away
+from this place. Can't you shift your offices to&mdash;say New York?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p><p>"I can and I can't," he said. "If you will forgive my saying so, the
+matter of the Green Rust is of infinitely greater importance than Miss
+Cresswell's safety."</p>
+
+<p>James Kitson frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like to hear you say that, Beale."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like hearing myself say it," confessed the other, "but let me
+put it this way. I believe by staying here I can afford her greater
+protection and at the same time put a spoke in the wheel of Mr. van
+Heerden's larger scheme."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson pinched his lips thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are right," he said. "Now I want to see this young lady,
+that is why I have come. I suppose there will be no difficulty?"</p>
+
+<p>"None at all, I think," said Beale. "I will tell her that you are
+interested in the work she is doing. I might introduce you as Mr.
+Scobbs," he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Scobbs?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is a proprietor of a series of hotels in Western Canada, and is, I
+should imagine, a most praiseworthy and inoffensive captain of minor
+industry, but Miss Cresswell is rather interested in him," he laughed.
+"She found the name occurring in Canadian guide-books and was struck by
+its quaintness."</p>
+
+<p>"Scobbs," said the lawyer slowly. "I seem to know that name."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better know it if I am going to introduce you as Scobbs
+himself," laughed Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I be in the way?" asked the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"No, please stay," said Beale. "I would like you to see this lady. We
+may want your official assistance one of these days to get her out of a
+scrape."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale passed out of the flat and pressed the bell of the door next
+to his. There was no response. He pressed it again after an interval,
+and stepped back to look at the fanlight. No light showed and he took
+out his watch. It was nine o'clock. He had not seen the girl all day,
+having been present at the inquest, but he had heard her door close two
+hours before. No reply came to his second ring, and he went back to his
+flat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p><p>"She's out," he said. "I don't quite understand it. I particularly
+requested her yesterday not to go out after dark for a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>He walked into his bedroom and opened the window. The light of day was
+still in the sky, but he took a small electric lamp to guide him along
+the narrow steel balcony which connected all the flats with the
+fire-escape. He found her window closed and bolted, but with the skill
+of a professional burglar he unfastened the catch and stepped inside.</p>
+
+<p>The room was in darkness. He switched on the light and glanced round. It
+was Oliva's bedroom, and her workday hat and coat were lying on the bed.
+He opened the long cupboard where she kept her limited wardrobe. He
+knew, because it was his business to know, every dress she possessed.
+They were all there as, also, were the three hats which she kept on a
+shelf. All the drawers of the bureau were closed and there was no sign
+of any disorder such as might be expected if she had changed and gone
+out. He opened the door of the bedroom and walked into the sitting-room,
+lighting his way across to the electric switch by means of his lamp.</p>
+
+<p>The moment the light flooded the room he realized that something was
+wrong. There was no disorder, but the room conveyed in some
+indescribable manner a suggestion of violence. An object on the floor
+attracted his attention and he stooped and picked it up. It was a shoe,
+and the strap which had held it in place was broken. He looked at it,
+slipped it in his pocket and passed rapidly through the other rooms to
+the little kitchen and the tiny bath-room, put on the light in the hall
+and made a careful scrutiny of the walls and the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The mat was twisted out of its place, and on the left side of the wall
+there were two long scratches. There was a faint sickly odour.</p>
+
+<p>"Ether," he noted mentally.</p>
+
+<p>He went quickly into the dining-room. The little bureau-desk was open
+and a letter half-finished was lying on the pad, and it was addressed to
+him and ran:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Beale</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Circumstances beyond my control make it necessary for me to leave
+to-night for Liverpool."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That was all. It was obviously half finished. He picked it up, folded it
+carefully and slipped it in his pocket. Then he returned to the hall,
+opened the door and passed out.</p>
+
+<p>He explained briefly what had happened and crossed to the doctor's flat,
+and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>A FRUITLESS SEARCH</h3>
+
+<p>A light glowed in the hall, the door was opened and the doctor, in
+slippers and velvet coat, stood in the entrance. He showed no resentment
+nor did he have time to show it.</p>
+
+<p>"I want a word with you," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty if you wish," said the doctor cheerfully. "Won't you come in?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale was half-way in before the invitation was issued and followed the
+doctor to his study.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you alone?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite alone. I have very few visitors. In fact, my last visitor was
+that unhappy man Jackson."</p>
+
+<p>"When did you see Miss Cresswell last?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor raised his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"By what right&mdash;&mdash;?" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Cut all that out," said Beale roughly. "When did you see Miss Cresswell
+last?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not seen her to-day," said the doctor. "I have not been out of
+my flat since I came back from the inquest."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to search your flat," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p><p>"Policeman, eh?" smiled the doctor. "Certainly you can search the flat
+if you have a warrant."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no warrant, but I shall search your flat."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's face went dull red.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you know you are liable to an action for trespass?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about that," said Beale, "but if you have nothing to
+conceal, Dr. van Heerden, I don't see why you should object."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't object," shrugged the doctor, "search by all means. Where would
+you like to start? Here?"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to three upright cases which stood at the end of the room
+nearest the door.</p>
+
+<p>"You will see nothing very pleasant here, they are anatomical models
+which have just arrived from Berlin. In fact, I have been trading with
+the enemy," he smiled. "They are screwed up, but I have a screwdriver
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Beale hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"There is only another room," the doctor went on, "my bedroom, but you
+will not find her there."</p>
+
+<p>Beale twisted round like lightning.</p>
+
+<p>"Her?" he asked. "Who said Her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I gather you are looking for Miss Cresswell," said the doctor coolly.
+"You are searching for something, and you ask me when I saw her last.
+Who else could you be looking for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me show you the way." The doctor walked ahead and turned on the
+light in the inner bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large apartment, simply furnished with a small steel bed, a
+hanging wardrobe and a dressing-chest. Beyond that was his bath-room.</p>
+
+<p>Beale was making a casual survey of this when he heard the door of the
+bedroom click behind him. He turned round, jumped for the door, turned
+the handle and pulled, but it did not yield. As he did so he thought he
+heard a mutter of voices.</p>
+
+<p>"Open the door!" he cried, hammering on the panel.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Beale!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p><p>His blood froze at the wild appeal in the tone, for it was the voice of
+Oliva Cresswell, and it came from the room he had quitted.</p>
+
+<p>He smashed at the panel but it was made of tough oak. His revolver was
+in his hand and the muzzle was against the lock when the handle turned
+and the door opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you lock yourself in?" smiled the doctor, looking blandly at the
+other's pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the girl, where is Miss Cresswell?" he demanded. "I heard her
+voice."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mad, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Miss Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p>His hand dropped on the other's shoulder and gripped it with a force
+that made the other shrink. With an oath the doctor flung him off.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang you, you madman! How should I know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I heard her voice."</p>
+
+<p>"It was imagination," said the doctor. "I would have opened the door to
+you before but I had walked out into the passage and had rung Miss
+Cresswell's bell. I found the door open. I suppose you had been in. I
+just shut the door and came back here."</p>
+
+<p>Without a word Beale thrust him aside. He had taken one step to the door
+when he stopped: At the end of the room had been the three long
+anatomical cases. Now there were only two. One had gone. He did not stop
+to question the man. He bounded through the door and raced down the
+stairs. There was no vehicle in sight and only a few pedestrians. At the
+corner of the street he found a policeman who had witnessed nothing
+unusual and had not seen any conveyance carrying a box.</p>
+
+<p>As he returned slowly to the entrance of Krooman Mansions something made
+him look up. The doctor was leaning out of the window smoking a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Found her?" he asked mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>Beale made no reply. He came up the stairs, walked straight through the
+open door of the doctor's flat and confronted that calm man as he leant
+against the table, his hands gripping the edge, a cigar in the corner of
+his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> mouth and a smile of quiet amusement on his bearded lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he asked, "did you find her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not find her, but I am satisfied that <i>you</i> will."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden's eyes did not falter.</p>
+
+<p>"I am beginning to think, Mr. Beale, that over-indulgence in alcoholic
+stimulants has turned your brain," he said mockingly. "You come into my
+apartment and demand, with an heroic gesture, where I am concealing a
+beautiful young lady, in whose welfare I am at least as much interested
+as you, since that lady is my fianc&eacute;e and is going to be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"She is going to be your wife, is she?" said Beale softly. "I
+congratulate you if I cannot congratulate her. And when is this
+interesting engagement to be announced?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is announced at this moment," said the doctor. "The lady is on her
+way to Liverpool, where she will stay with an aunt of mine. You need not
+trouble to ask me for her address, because I shall not give it to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"You come in here, I repeat, demanding with all the gesture and voice of
+melodrama, the hiding-place of my fianc&eacute;e,"&mdash;he enunciated the two last
+words with great relish&mdash;"you ask to search my rooms and I give you
+permission. You lock yourself in through your own carelessness and when
+I release you you have a revolver in your hand, and are even more
+melodramatic than ever. I know what you are going to say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a clever man," interrupted Beale, "for I don't know myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You were going to say, or you think, that I have some sinister purpose
+in concealing this lady. Well, to resume my narrative, and to show you
+your conduct from my point of view, I no sooner release you than you
+stare like a lunatic at my anatomical cases and dash wildly out, to
+return full of menace in your tone and attitude. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor van Heerden, when I came into your flat there were three
+anatomical cases at the end of that room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> When I came out there were
+two. What happened to the third whilst I was locked in the room?"</p>
+
+<p>Doctor van Heerden shook his head pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid, I am very much afraid, that you are not right in your
+head," he said, and nodded toward the place where the cases stood.</p>
+
+<p>Beale followed the direction of his head and gasped, for there were
+three cases.</p>
+
+<p>"I admit that I deceived you when I said they contained specimens. As a
+matter of fact, they are empty," said the doctor. "If you like to
+inspect them, you can. You may find some&mdash;clue!"</p>
+
+<p>Beale wanted no invitation. He walked to the cases one by one and
+sounded them. Their lids were screwed on but the screws were dummies. He
+found in the side of each a minute hole under the cover of the lid and,
+taking out his knife, he pressed in the bodkin with which the knife was
+equipped and with a click the lid flew open. The box was empty. The
+second one answered the same test and was also empty. The third gave no
+better result. He flashed his lamp on the bottom of the box, but there
+was no trace of footmarks.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you satisfied?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Far from satisfied," said Beale, and with no other word he walked out
+and down the stairs again.</p>
+
+<p>Half-way down he saw something lying on one of the stairs and picked it
+up. It was a shoe, the fellow of that which he had in his pocket, and it
+had not been there when he came up.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell had read the story of the crime in the <i>Post Record</i>,
+had folded up the paper with a little shiver and was at her tiny
+writing-bureau when a knock came at the door. It was Dr. van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I come in for a moment?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't eat you," he smiled, "but I am so distressed by what has
+happened and I feel that an explanation is due to you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p><p>"I shouldn't trouble about that," she smiled, "but if you want to come
+in, please do."</p>
+
+<p>She closed the door behind him and left the light burning in the hall.
+She did not ask him to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen the account in the <i>Post Record</i>?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose you are rather struck with the discrepancy between what I
+told you and what I told the reporters, but I feel you ought to know
+that I had a very special reason for protecting this man."</p>
+
+<p>"Of that I have no doubt," she said coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell, you must be patient and kind to me," he said earnestly.
+"I have devoted a great deal of time and I have run very considerable
+dangers in order to save you."</p>
+
+<p>"To save me?" she repeated in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell," he asked, "did you ever know your father?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, so impressed by the gravity of his tone that she did
+not cut the conversation short as she had intended.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, "I was a girl when he died. I know nothing of him. Even
+his own people who brought him up never spoke of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure he is dead?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure? I have never doubted it. Why do you ask me? Is he alive?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"What I am going to tell you will be rather painful," he said: "your
+father was a notorious swindler." He paused, but she did not protest.</p>
+
+<p>In her life she had heard many hints which did not redound to her
+father's credit, and she had purposely refrained from pursuing her
+inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>"Some time ago your father escaped from Cayenne. He is, you will be
+surprised to know, a French subject, and the police have been searching
+for him for twelve months, including our friend Mr. Beale."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't true," she flamed. "How dare you suggest&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>"I am merely telling you the facts, Miss Cresswell, and you must judge
+them for yourself," said the doctor. "Your father robbed a bank in
+France and hid the money in England. Because they knew that sooner or
+later he would send for you the police have been watching you day and
+night. Your father is at Liverpool. I had a letter from him this
+morning. He is dying and he begs you to go to him."</p>
+
+<p>She sat at the table, stunned. There was in this story a hideous
+probability. Her first inclination was to consult Beale, but instantly
+she saw that if what the doctor had said was true such a course would be
+fatal.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know you are speaking the truth?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot know until you have seen your father," he said. "It is a
+very simple matter."</p>
+
+<p>He took from his pocket an envelope and laid it before her.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the address&mdash;64 Hope Street. I advise you to commit it to
+memory and tear it up. After all, what possible interest could I have in
+your going to Liverpool, or anywhere else for the matter of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"When is the next train?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"One leaves in an hour from Euston."</p>
+
+<p>She thought a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," she said decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>She was walking back to her room to put on her coat when he called her
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no reason in the world why you should not write to Beale to
+tell him where you have gone," he said. "You can leave a note with me
+and I will deliver it."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated again, sat down at her desk and scribbled the few lines
+which Beale had found. Then she twisted round in her chair in
+perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand it all," she said. "If Mr. Beale is on the track of
+my father, surely he will understand from this letter that I have gone
+to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see what you have written," said van Heerden coolly, and looked
+over her shoulder. "Yes, that's enough," he said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>"Enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite enough. You see, my idea was that you should write sufficient to
+put him off the track."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you&mdash;there's somebody in the passage," she said
+suddenly, and was walking to the door leading to the hall when he
+intercepted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell, I think you will understand me when I tell you that
+your father is dead, that the story I have told you about Beale being on
+his track is quite untrue, and that it is necessary for a purpose which
+I will not disclose to you that you should be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>She sprang back out of his reach, white as death. Instinctively she
+realized that she was in some terrible danger, and the knowledge turned
+her cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife?" she repeated. "I think you must be mad, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I am perfectly sane. I would have asked you before,
+but I knew that you would refuse me. Had our friend Beale not
+interfered, the course of true love might have run a little more
+smoothly than it has. Now I am going to speak plainly to you, Miss
+Cresswell. It is necessary that I should marry you, and if you agree I
+shall take you away and place you in safe keeping. I will marry you at
+the registrar's office and part from you the moment the ceremony is
+completed. I will agree to allow you a thousand a year and I will
+promise that I will not interfere with you or in any way seek your
+society."</p>
+
+<p>Her courage had revived during this recital of her future.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you expect me to do," she asked contemptuously&mdash;"fall on your
+neck and thank you, you with your thousand a year and your church-door
+partings? No, doctor, if you are sane then you are either a great fool
+or a great scoundrel. I would never dream of marrying you under any
+circumstances. And now I think you had better go."</p>
+
+<p>This time he did not stop her as she walked to the door and flung it
+open. She started back with an exclamation of fear, for there were two
+men in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>So far she got when the doctor's arm was round her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> and his hand was
+pressed against her mouth. One of the men was carrying what looked like
+a rubber bottle with a conical-shaped mouthpiece. She struggled, but the
+doctor held her in a grip of steel. She was thrown to the ground, the
+rubber cap of the bottle was pressed over her face, there came a rush of
+cold air heavily charged with a sickly scent, and she felt life slipping
+away....</p>
+
+<p>"I think she's off now," said the doctor, lifting up her eyelid, "see if
+the coast is clear, Gregory, and open the door of my flat."</p>
+
+<p>The man departed. The doctor lifted the unconscious girl in his arms. He
+was in the hall when he felt her move. Half-conscious as she was, she
+was struggling to prevent the abduction.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, the door!" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>He carried her across the landing into his room, and the door closed
+quietly behind him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HOUSE NEAR STAINES</h3>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell remembered nothing. She did not remember being thrust
+limply into a long narrow box, nor hearing Beale's voice, nor the click
+of the door that fastened him in Dr. van Heerden's bedroom. If she cried
+out, as she did, she had no recollection of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Carry her, box and all, to her flat. The door is open," whispered van
+Heerden to the two men who had made their lightning disappearance into
+the anatomical cases at the sound of Beale's knock.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I come to you. Hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the landing and passed through the open door of Oliva's
+flat and the doctor closed the door <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>behind them and returned in time to
+release the savage Beale.</p>
+
+<p>He watched him racing down the stairs, darted to the door of Oliva's
+rooms, opened it and went in. In ten seconds she had been lifted from
+her narrow prison and laid on her bed, the box had been returned to the
+place where it had stood in the doctor's study and the men had returned
+to join van Heerden in Oliva's darkened sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden had switched on the light in the girl's room and then
+noticed for the first time that one of her shoes was missing. Quickly he
+slipped off the remaining shoe.</p>
+
+<p>"You wait here," he told the men, "until you hear Beale return. Then
+make your escape. On your way down leave the shoe on the stairs. It will
+help to put our friend off the trail."</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour after the discovery of the shoe on the stairs Beale went
+out accompanied by his visitors.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor watched the dark figures disappear into the night from the
+window of his sitting-room and made his way back to the girl's flat. She
+was lying where he had left her, feeling dizzy and sick. Her eyes closed
+in a little grimace of distaste as he put on the light.</p>
+
+<p>"How does my little friend feel now?" he asked coolly.</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, you must not sulk," he said chidingly, "and you must get used
+to being polite because you are going to see a great deal of me. You had
+better get up and put your coat on."</p>
+
+<p>She noticed that he had a medicine glass in his hand, half-filled with a
+milky-white liquor.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink this," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She pushed it away.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, drink it," he said, "you don't suppose I want to poison you, do
+you? I don't even want to drug you, otherwise it would have been simple
+to have given you a little more ether. Drink it. It will take that hazy
+feeling out of your head."</p>
+
+<p>She took the glass with an unsteady hand and swallowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> its contents. It
+was bitter and hot and burnt her throat, but its effects were magical.
+In three minutes her mind had cleared and when she sat up she could do
+so without her head swimming.</p>
+
+<p>"You will now put on your coat and hat, pack a few things that you want
+for a journey, and come along with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do nothing of the sort," she said, "I advise you to go, Dr. van
+Heerden, before I inform the police of your outrageous conduct."</p>
+
+<p>"Put on your hat and coat," he repeated calmly, "and don't talk
+nonsense. You don't suppose that I have risked all that I have risked to
+let you go at this hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. van Heerden," she said, "if you have any spark of decency or
+manhood you will leave me."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you are talking like a heroine of Lyceum drama," he said. "Any
+appeal you might make, Miss Cresswell, is a waste of time and a waste of
+breath. I shall have no hesitation in using violence of the most
+unpleasant character unless you do as I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was quiet, but there was about him a convincing air of
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going to take me?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to take you to a place of safety. When I say safety," he
+added, "I mean safety for me. You yourself need fear nothing unless you
+act foolishly, in which case you have everything to fear. Disabuse your
+mind of one thought, Miss Cresswell," he said, "and that is that I am in
+love with you and that there is any quality or charm in your admirable
+person which would prevent my cutting your throat if it was necessary
+for my safety. I am not a brute. I will treat you decently, as well as
+any lady could wish to be treated, if you do not cross me, but I warn
+you that if in the street you call for help or attempt to escape you
+will never know what happened to you."</p>
+
+<p>She stood at the end of her bed, one hand gripping the rail, her white
+teeth showing against the red lower lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bite your lips, it does not stimulate thought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> I can tell you
+that as a medical man, and I can also tell you that this is not the
+moment for you to consider plans for outwitting me. Get your coat and
+hat on."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was now peremptory, and she obeyed. In a few minutes she was
+dressed ready for the street. He led the way out and holding her arm
+lightly they passed out into the street. He turned sharply to the left,
+the girl keeping in step by his side. To the casual observer, and few
+could observe them in the gloom of the ill-lit thoroughfares through
+which they passed, they were a couple on affectionate terms, but the arm
+locked in hers was the arm of a gaoler, and once when they stood waiting
+to cross busy Oxford Circus, and she had seen a policeman a few yards
+away and had cautiously tried to slip her arm from his, she found her
+wrist gripped with a hand of steel.</p>
+
+<p>At the Marylebone Road end of Portland Place a car was waiting and the
+doctor opened the door and pushed her in, following immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"I had to keep the car some distance from Krooman Mansions or Beale
+would have spotted it immediately," he said in an easy conversational
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you taking me?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To a highly desirable residence in the Thames Valley," he said, "in the
+days when I thought you might be wooed and wed, as the saying goes, I
+thought it might make an excellent place for a honeymoon." He felt her
+shrink from him.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't be distressed, I am rather glad that matters have turned
+out as they have. I do not like women very much, and I should have been
+inexpressibly bored if I had to keep up the fiction of being in love
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you intend doing?" she asked. "You cannot hope to escape from
+Mr. Beale. He will find me."</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"As a sleuth-hound, Mr. Beale has his points," he said, "but they are
+not points which keep me awake at night. I have always suspected he was
+a detective, and, of course, it was he who planted the registered
+envelopes on poor old White&mdash;that was clever," he admitted handsomely,
+"but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> Beale, if you will excuse my hurting your feelings&mdash;and I know you
+are half in love with him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She felt her face go hot.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you!" she flamed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be silly," he begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances,
+the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself
+entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much
+faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular
+police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who
+figure in divorce cases."</p>
+
+<p>She did not reply. Inwardly she was boiling, and she recognized with a
+little feeling of dismay that it was not so much the indignity which he
+was offering her, as his undisguised contempt for the genius of Beale,
+which enraged her.</p>
+
+<p>They had left the town and were spinning through the country when she
+spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be kind enough to tell me what you intend doing?"</p>
+
+<p>He had fallen into a reverie and it was evidently a pleasant reverie,
+for he came back to the realities of life with an air of reluctance.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Oh, what am I going to do with you? Why, I am going to marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I refuse?"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't refuse. I am offering you the easiest way out. When you are
+married to me your danger is at an end. Until you marry me your hold on
+life is somewhat precarious."</p>
+
+<p>"But why do you insist upon this?" she asked, bewildered, "If you don't
+love me, what is there in marriage for you? There are plenty of women
+who would be delighted to have you. Why should you want to marry a girl
+without any influence or position&mdash;a shop-girl, absolutely penniless?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a whim of mine," he said lightly, "and it's a whim I mean to
+gratify."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I refuse at the last moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he said significantly, "you will be sorry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> I tell you, no harm
+is coming to you if you are sensible. If you are not sensible, imagine
+the worst that can happen to you, and that will be the least. I will
+treat you so that you will not think of your experience, let alone talk
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>There was a cold malignity in his voice that made her shudder. For a
+moment, and a moment only, she was beaten down by the horrible
+hopelessness of her situation, then her natural courage, her
+indomitable, self-reliance overcame fear. If he expected an outburst of
+anger and incoherent reproach, or if he expected her to break down into
+hysterical supplication, he was disappointed. She had a firm grip upon
+herself, perfect command of voice and words.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are one of those clever criminals one reads about," she
+said, "prepared for all emergencies, perfectly self-confident, capable
+and satisfied that there is nobody quite so clever as themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely," he smiled. "It is a form of egotism," he said quietly. "I
+read a book once about criminals. It was written by an Italian and he
+said that was the chief characteristic of them all."</p>
+
+<p>"Vanity? And they always do such clever things and such stupid things at
+the same time, and their beautiful plans are so full of absurd
+miscalculations, just as yours are."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as mine are," he said mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as yours are," she repeated; "you are so satisfied that because
+you are educated and you are a scientist, that you are ever so much more
+clever than all the rest of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said. "I like to hear you talking. Your analysis is nearly
+perfect and certainly there is a lot of truth in what you say."</p>
+
+<p>She held down the surging anger which almost choked her and retained a
+calm level. Sooner or later she would find the joint in his harness.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you have everything ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"My staff work is always good," he murmured, "marriage licence, parson,
+even the place where you will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> spend your solitary honeymoon after
+signing a few documents."</p>
+
+<p>She turned toward him slowly. Against the window of the big limousine
+his head was faintly outlined and she imagined the smile which was on
+his face at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>"So that is it!" she said. "I must sign a few documents saying that I
+married you of my own free will!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, madam," he said, "the circumstances under which you marry me
+require no justification and that doesn't worry me in the slightest."</p>
+
+<p>"What documents have I to sign?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You will discover in time," said he. "Here is the house, unless my
+eyesight has gone wrong."</p>
+
+<p>The car turned from the road, seemed to plunge into a high hedge, though
+in reality, as the girl saw for a second as the lamps caught the stone
+gate-posts, it was the entrance to a drive, and presently came to a stop
+before a big rambling house. Van Heerden jumped down and assisted her to
+alight. The house was in darkness, but as they reached the door it was
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Go in," said van Heerden, and pushed her ahead.</p>
+
+<p>She found herself in an old-fashioned hall, the walls panelled of oak,
+the floor made of closely mortised stone flags. She recognized the man
+who had admitted them as one of those she had seen in her flat that same
+night. He was a cadaverous man with high cheekbones and short, bristly
+black hair and a tiny black moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't introduce you," said the doctor, "but you may call this man
+Gregory. It is not his name, but it is good enough."</p>
+
+<p>The man smiled furtively and eyed her furtively, took up the candle and
+led the way to a room which opened off the hall at the farther end.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the dining-room," said van Heerden. "It is chiefly interesting
+to you as the place where the ceremony will be performed. Your room is
+immediately above. I am sorry I did not engage a maid for you, but I
+cannot afford to observe the proprieties or consider your reputation.
+The fact is, I know no woman I could trust to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>perform that duty, and
+you will have to look after yourself."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way upstairs, unlocked a door and passed in. There was one
+window which was heavily curtained. He saw her glance and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find the windows barred," he said. "This was evidently the
+nursery and is admirably suited to my purpose. In addition, I might tell
+you that the house is a very old one and that it is impossible to walk
+about the room without the door creaking and, as I spend most of my time
+in the dining-room below, you will find it extremely difficult even to
+make preparations for escape without my being aware of the fact."</p>
+
+<p>The room was comfortably furnished. A small fire was alight in the tiny
+grate and a table had been laid, on which were displayed sandwiches, a
+thermos flask and a small silver basket of confectionery.</p>
+
+<p>There was a door by the big four-poster bed.</p>
+
+<p>"You may consider yourself fortunate in having the only room in the
+house with a bath-room attached," he said. "You English people are
+rather particular about that kind of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"And you German people aren't," she said coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"German?" he laughed. "So you guessed that, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Guessed it?"&mdash;it was her turn to laugh scornfully. "Isn't the fact
+self-evident? Who but a Hun&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His face went a dull red.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a word you must not use to me," he said roughly&mdash;"hang your
+arrogance! Huns! We, who gave the world its kultur, who lead in every
+department of science, art and literature!"</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"You are joking, of course," she said, forgetting her danger for the
+moment in face of this extraordinary phenomenon. "If you are a German,
+and I suppose you are, and an educated German at that, you don't for a
+moment imagine you gave the world anything. Why, the Germans have never
+been anything but exploiters of other men's brains."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p><p>From dull red, his face had gone white, his lip was trembling with
+passion and when he spoke he could scarcely control his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We were of all people ordained by God to save the world through the
+German spirit."</p>
+
+<p>So far he got when she burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It
+was so like all the caricatures of German character she had read or seen
+depicted. He looked at her, his face distorted with rage, and before she
+had realized what had happened he had raised his hand and struck her
+across the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>She staggered back, speechless. To her had happened the most incredible
+thing in the world, more incredible than her abduction, more incredible
+than all the villainies known or suspected, in this man.</p>
+
+<p>He stood there glowering at her, unrepentant, half-tempted, it seemed,
+to repeat the blow. He had struck a woman and was not overwhelmed by
+shame. All her views of men and things, all her conceptions of the codes
+which govern mankind in their dealings one with the other, crumbled
+away. If he had fallen on his knees and asked her pardon, if he had
+shown any contrition, any fear, any shame, she might have gone back to
+her old standards.</p>
+
+<p>"You swine cat!" he said in German, "Herr Gott, but I will punish you if
+you laugh at me!"</p>
+
+<p>She was staring at him in intense curiosity. Her lip was bleeding a
+little, the red mark of his fingers showed against her white face, but
+she seemed to have forgotten the pain or the shock of the actual blow
+and was wholly concerned in this new revelation.</p>
+
+<p>"A Hun," she said, but she seemed to be speaking to herself, "of course
+he's a Hun. They do that sort of thing, but I never believed it before."</p>
+
+<p>He took a step toward her, but she did not flinch, and he turned and
+walked quickly from the room, locking the door behind him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>INTRODUCING PARSON HOMO</h3>
+
+<p>When Beale left Krooman Mansions with his two companions he had only the
+haziest idea as to where he should begin his search. Perhaps the
+personal interest he had in his client, an interest revealed by the
+momentary panic into which her disappearance had thrown this usually
+collected young man, clouded his better judgment.</p>
+
+<p>A vague discomfort possessed him and he paused irresolutely at the
+corner of the street. There was a chance that she might still be
+concealed in the building, but a greater chance that if he followed one
+of the three plans which were rapidly forming in his mind he might save
+the girl from whatever danger threatened her.</p>
+
+<p>"You are perfectly sure you heard her voice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certain," replied Beale shortly, "just as I am sure that I smelt the
+ether."</p>
+
+<p>"She may have been using it for some other purpose. Women put these
+drugs to all sorts of weird purposes, like cleaning gloves, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be," interrupted Beale, "but I wasn't mistaken about her
+voice. I am not subject to illusions of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>He whistled. A man who had been lurking in the shadow of a building on
+the opposite side of the road crossed to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Fenson," said Beale, "watch these flats. If you see a car drive up just
+go along and stand in front of the door. Don't let anybody enter that
+car or carry any bundle into that car until you are sure that Miss
+Cresswell is not one of the party or the bundle. If necessary you can
+pull a gun&mdash;I know it isn't done in law-abiding London," he smiled at
+Superintendent McNorton, "but I guess you've got to let me do a little
+law-breaking."</p>
+
+<p>"Go all the way," said the superintendent easily.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, Fenson. You know Miss Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p><p>"Sure, sir," said the man, and melted back into the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going now?" asked Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to interview a gentleman who will probably give me a great
+deal of information about van Heerden's other residences."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he many?" asked Kitson, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"He has been hiring buildings and houses for the past three months," he
+said quietly, "and he has been so clever that I will defy you to trace
+one of them. All his hiring has been done through various lawyers he has
+employed, and they are all taken in fictitious names."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know any of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not one," said Beale, with a baffled little laugh, "didn't I tell you
+he's mighty clever? I got track of two of them but they were the only
+two where the sale didn't go through."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he want houses for?"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall learn one of these days," said Beale cryptically. "I can tell
+you something else, gentlemen, and this is more of a suspicion than a
+certainty, that there is not a crank scientist who has ever gone under
+through drink or crime in the whole of this country, aye, and America
+and France, too, that isn't working for him. And now, gentlemen, if you
+will excuse me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want any assistance?" asked the superintendent.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess not," said Beale, with a smile, "I guess I can manage the Herr
+Professor."</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>On the south side of the River Thames is a congested and thickly
+populated area lying between the Waterloo and the Blackfriars Roads.
+Here old houses, which are gauntly picturesque because of their age,
+stand cheek-by-jowl with great blocks of model dwellings, which make up
+in utility all that they lack in beauty. Such dwelling-places have a
+double advantage. Their rent is low and they are close to the centre of
+London. Few of the houses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> are occupied by one family, and indeed it is
+the exception that one family rents in its entirety so much as a floor.</p>
+
+<p>In a basement room in one of those houses sat two men as unlike one
+another as it is possible to conceive. The room itself was strangely
+tidy and bare of anything but the necessary furniture. A camp bed was
+under the window in such a position as to give its occupant a view of
+the ankles of those people who trod the pavement of the little street.</p>
+
+<p>A faded cretonne curtain hid an inner and probably a smaller room where
+the elder of the men slept. They sat on either side of a table, a
+kerosene lamp placed exactly in the centre supplying light for their
+various occupations.</p>
+
+<p>The elder of the two was bent forward over a microscope, his big hands
+adjusting the focus screw. Presently he would break off his work of
+observation and jot down a few notes in crabbed German characters. His
+big head, his squat body, his long ungainly arms, his pale face with its
+little wisp of beard, would have been recognized by Oliva Cresswell, for
+this was Professor Heyler&mdash;"the Herr Professor," as Beale called him.</p>
+
+<p>The man sitting opposite was cast in a different mould. He was tall,
+spare, almost &aelig;sthetic. The clean-shaven face, the well-moulded nose and
+chin hinted at a refinement which his shabby threadbare suit and his
+collarless shirt freakishly accentuated. Now and again he would raise
+his deep-set eyes from the book he was reading, survey the absorbed
+professor with a speculative glance and then return to his reading.</p>
+
+<p>They had sat in silence for the greater part of an hour, when Beale's
+tap on the door brought the reader round with narrow eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Expecting a visitor, professor?" he asked in German.</p>
+
+<p>"Nein, nein," rambled the old man, "who shall visit me? Ah yes"&mdash;he
+tapped his fat forefinger&mdash;"I remember, the Fr&auml;ulein was to call."</p>
+
+<p>He got up and, shuffling to the door, slipped back the bolt and turned
+it. His face fell when he saw Beale, and the man at the table rose.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p><p>"Hope I am not disturbing you," said the detective. "I thought you
+lived alone."</p>
+
+<p>He, too, spoke in the language which the professor understood best.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a friend of mine," said old Heyler uncomfortably, "we live
+together. I did not think you knew my address."</p>
+
+<p>"Introduce me," said the man at the table coolly.</p>
+
+<p>The old professor looked dubiously from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my friend, Herr Homo."</p>
+
+<p>"Herr Homo," repeated Beale, offering his hand, "my name is Beale."</p>
+
+<p>Homo shot a keen glance at him.</p>
+
+<p>"A split! or my criminal instincts fail me," he said, pleasantly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Split?" repeated Beale, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"American I gather from your accent," said Mr. Homo; "pray sit down.
+'Split' is the phrase employed by the criminal classes to describe a
+gentleman who in your country is known as a 'fly cop'!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a detective," smiled Beale. "No, in the sense you mean I am not a
+detective. At any rate, I have not come on business."</p>
+
+<p>"So I gather," said the other, seating himself, "or you would have
+brought one of the 'busy fellows' with you. Here again you must pardon
+the slang but we call the detective the 'busy fellow' to distinguish him
+from the 'flattie,' who is the regular cop. Unless you should be under
+any misapprehension, Mr. Beale, it is my duty to tell you that I am a
+representative of the criminal classes, a fact which our learned
+friend," he nodded toward the distressed professor, "never ceases to
+deplore," and he smiled blandly.</p>
+
+<p>They had dropped into English and the professor after waiting
+uncomfortably for the visitor to explain his business had dropped back
+to his work with a grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Parson Homo and this is my <i>pied-&agrave;-terre</i>. We professional
+criminals must have somewhere to go when we are not in prison, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>The voice was that of an educated man, its modulation, the confidence
+and the perfect poise of the speaker suggested the college man.</p>
+
+<p>"So that you shall not be shocked by revelations I must tell you that I
+have just come out of prison. I am by way of being a professional
+burglar."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not easily shocked," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Parson Homo, rising, "that I am <i>de trop</i>. Unfortunately I
+cannot go into the street without risking arrest. In this country, you
+know, there is a law which is called the Prevention of Crimes Act, which
+empowers the unemployed members of the constabulary who find time
+hanging on their hands to arrest known criminals on suspicion if they
+are seen out in questionable circumstances. And as all circumstances are
+questionable to the unimaginative 'flattie,' and his no less obtuse
+friend the 'split,' I will retire to the bedroom and stuff my ears with
+cotton-wool."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't," smiled Beale, "I guess the professor hasn't many secrets
+from you."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on guessing, my ingenious friend," said the parson, smiling with his
+eyes, "my own secrets I am willing to reveal but&mdash;<i>adios!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand and passed behind the cretonne curtain and the old man
+looked up from his instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Donovan Leichmann body that I search for," he said solemnly;
+"there was a case of sleeping-sickness at the docks, and the Herr
+Professor of the Tropical School so kindly let me have a little blood
+for testing."</p>
+
+<p>"Professor," said Beale, sitting down in the place which Parson Homo had
+vacated and leaning across the table, "are you still working for van
+Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man rolled his big head from side to side in an agony of
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Of the learned doctor I do not want to speak," he said, "to me he has
+been most kind. Consider, Herr Peale, I was starving in this country
+which hates Germans and regard as a mad old fool and an ugly old devil,
+and none helped me until the learned doctor discovered me. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> am a
+German, yes. Yet I have no nationality, being absorbed in the larger
+brotherhood of science. As for me I am indifferent whether the Kaiser or
+the Socialists live in Potsdam, but I am loyal, Herr Peale, to all who
+help me. To you, also," he said hastily, "for you have been most kind,
+and once when in foolishness I went into a room where I ought not to
+have been you saved me from the police." He shrugged his massive
+shoulders again. "I am grateful, but must I not also be grateful to the
+learned doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me this, professor," said Beale, "where can I find the learned
+doctor to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"At his so-well-known laboratory, where else?" asked the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Where else?" repeated Beale.</p>
+
+<p>The old man was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"It is forbidden that I should speak," he said; "the Herr Doctor is
+engaged in a great experiment which will bring him fortune. If I betray
+his secrets he may be ruined. Such ingratitude, Herr Peale!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, the old professor, obviously distressed and ill at
+ease, looking anxiously at the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I tell you that the Herr Doctor is engaged in a dangerous
+conspiracy," said Beale, "and that you yourself are running a
+considerable risk by assisting him?"</p>
+
+<p>The big hands were outspread in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"The Herr Doctor has many enemies," mumbled Heyler. "I can tell you
+nothing, Herr Peale."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me this," said Beale: "is there any place you know of where the
+doctor may have taken a lady&mdash;the young lady into whose room you went
+the night I found you?"</p>
+
+<p>"A young lady?" The old man was obviously surprised. "No, no, Herr
+Peale, there is no place where a young lady could go. Ach! No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Beale, after a pause, "I guess I can do no more with you,
+professor." He glanced round at the cretonne recess: "I won't
+inconvenience you any longer, Mr. Homo."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>The curtains were pushed aside and the &aelig;sthetic-looking man stepped
+out, the half-smile on his thin lips.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear you have had a disappointing visit," he said pleasantly, "and it
+is on the tip of your tongue to ask me if I can help you. I will save
+you the trouble of asking&mdash;I can't."</p>
+
+<p>Beale laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a bad thought-reader," he said. "I had no intention of asking
+you."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded to the old man, and with another nod to his companion was
+turning when a rap came at the door. He saw the two men exchange glances
+and noted in the face of the professor a look of blank dismay. The knock
+was repeated impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me," said Beale, and stepped to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, wait," stammered the professor, "if Mr. Peale will permit&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled forward, but Beale had turned the latch and opened the door
+wide. Standing in the entrance was a girl whom he had no difficulty in
+recognizing as Hilda Glaum, sometime desk companion of Oliva Cresswell.
+His back was to the light and she did not recognize him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not open more quickly?" she asked in German, and swung the
+heavy bag she carried into the room, "every moment I thought I should be
+intercepted. Here is the bag. It will be called for to-morrow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It was then that she saw Beale for the first time and her face went
+white.</p>
+
+<p>"Who&mdash;who are you?" she asked; then quickly, "I know you. You are the
+man Beale. The drunken man&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked from him to the bag at her feet and to him again, then before
+he could divine her intention she had stooped and grasped the handle of
+the bag. Instantly all his attention was riveted upon that leather case
+and its secret. His hand shot out and gripped her arm, but she wrenched
+herself free. In doing so the bag was carried by the momentum of its
+release and was driven heavily against the wall. He heard a shivering
+crash as though a hundred little glasses had broken simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p><p>Before he could reach the bag she snatched it up, leapt through the
+open door and slammed it to behind her. His hand was on the latch&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Put 'em up, Mr. Beale, put 'em up," said a voice behind him. "Right
+above your head, Mr. Beale, where we can see them."</p>
+
+<p>He turned slowly, his hands rising mechanically to face Parson Homo, who
+still sat at the table, but he had discarded his Greek book and was
+handling a business-like revolver, the muzzle of which covered the
+detective.</p>
+
+<p>"Smells rotten, doesn't it?" said Homo pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>Beale, too, had sniffed the musty odour, and knew that it came from the
+bag the girl had wrenched from his grasp. It was the sickly scent of the
+Green Rust!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AT DEANS FOLLY</h3>
+
+<p>With her elbows resting on the broad window-ledge and her cheeks against
+the cold steel bars which covered the window, Oliva Cresswell watched
+the mists slowly dissipate in the gentle warmth of the morning sun. She
+had spent the night dozing in a rocking-chair and at the first light of
+day she had bathed and redressed ready for any emergency. She had not
+heard any sound during the night and she guessed that van Heerden had
+returned to London.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which she was imprisoned was on the first floor at the back
+of the house and the view she had of the grounds was restricted to a
+glimpse between two big lilac bushes which were planted almost on a
+level with her room.</p>
+
+<p>The house had been built on the slope of a gentle rise so that you might
+walk from the first-floor window on to the grassy lawn at the back of
+the house but for two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>important obstacles, the first being represented
+by the bars which protected the window and the second by a deep area,
+concrete-lined, which formed a trench too wide to jump.</p>
+
+<p>She could see, however, that the grounds were extensive. The high wall
+which, apparently, separated the garden from the road was a hundred
+yards away. She knew it must be the road because of a little brown gate
+which from time to time she saw between the swaying bushes. She turned
+wearily from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. She was not
+afraid&mdash;irritated would be a better word to describe her emotion. She
+was mystified, too, and that was an added irritation.</p>
+
+<p>Why should this man, van Heerden, who admittedly did not love her, who
+indeed loved her so little that he could strike her and show no signs of
+remorse&mdash;why did this man want to marry her? If he wanted to marry her,
+why did he kidnap her?</p>
+
+<p>There was another question, too, which she had debated that night. Why
+did his reference to the American detective, Beale, so greatly embarrass
+her?</p>
+
+<p>She had reached the point where even such tremendous subjects of debate
+had become less interesting than the answer to that question which was
+furnished, when a knock came to her door and a gruff voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast!"</p>
+
+<p>She unlocked the door and pulled it open. The man called Gregory was
+standing on the landing. He jerked his thumb to the room opposite.</p>
+
+<p>"You can use both these rooms," he said, "but you can't come downstairs.
+I have put your breakfast in there."</p>
+
+<p>She followed the thumb across the landing and found herself in a plainly
+furnished sitting-room. The table had been laid with a respectable
+breakfast, and until she had appeased her healthy young appetite she
+took very little stock of her surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>The man came up in half an hour to clear away the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be kind enough to tell me where I am?" asked Oliva.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p><p>"I am not going to tell you anything," said Gregory.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you know that by detaining me here you are committing a very
+serious crime?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell it to the doctor," said the man, with a queer little smile.</p>
+
+<p>She followed him out to the landing. She wanted to see what sort of
+guard was kept and what possibilities there were of escape. Somehow it
+seemed easier to make a reconnaissance now under his very eyes than it
+had been in the night, when in every shadow had lurked a menace.</p>
+
+<p>She did not follow him far, however. He put down the tray at the head of
+the stairs and reaching out both his hands drew two sliding doors from
+the wall and snapped them in her face. She heard the click of a door and
+knew that any chance of escape from this direction was hopeless. The
+doors had slid noiselessly on their oiled runners and had formed for her
+a little lobby of the landing. She guessed that the sliding doors had
+been closed after van Heerden's departure. She had exhausted all the
+possibilities of her bedroom and now began an inspection of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Like its fellow, the windows were barred. There was a bookshelf, crowded
+with old volumes, mostly on matters ecclesiastical or theological. She
+looked at it thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if I were clever like Mr. Beale," she said aloud, "I could deduce
+quite a lot from this room."</p>
+
+<p>A distant church bell began to clang and she realized with a start that
+the day was Sunday. She looked at her watch and was amazed to see it was
+nearly eleven. She must have slept longer than she had thought.</p>
+
+<p>This window afforded her no better view than did that of the bedroom,
+except that she could see the gate more plainly and what looked to be
+the end of a low-roofed brick building which had been erected against
+the wall. She craned her neck, looking left and right, but the bushes
+had been carefully planted to give the previous occupants of these two
+rooms greater privacy.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the bell stopped and she addressed herself again to an
+examination of the room. In an old-fashioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> sloping desk she found a
+few sheets of paper, a pen and a bottle half-filled with thick ink.
+There were also two telegraph forms, and these gave her an idea. She
+went back to the table in the middle of the room. With paper before her
+she began to note the contents of the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to be Bealish," she admitted.</p>
+
+<p>She might also have confessed that she was trying to keep her mind off
+her possibly perilous position and that though she was not afraid she
+had a fear of fear.</p>
+
+<p>"A case full of very dull good books. That means that the person who
+lived here before was very serious-minded."</p>
+
+<p>She walked over and examined the titles, pulled out a few books and
+looked at their title pages. They all bore the same name, "L. T. B.
+Stringer." She uttered an exclamation. Wasn't there some directory of
+clergymen's names?&mdash;she was sure this was a clergyman, nobody else would
+have a library of such weighty volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Her fingers ran along the shelves and presently she found what she
+wanted&mdash;Crocker's Clergy List of 1879. She opened the book and presently
+found, "Stringer, Laurence Thomas Benjamin, Vicar of Upper Staines,
+Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes sparkled. Instinctively she knew that she had located her
+prison. Van Heerden had certainly hired the house furnished, probably
+from the clergyman or his widow. She began to search the room with
+feverish haste. Near the window was a cupboard built out. She opened it
+and found that it was a small service lift, apparently communicating
+with the kitchen. In a corner of the room was an invalid chair on
+wheels.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down at the table and reconstructed the character of its
+occupant. She saw an invalid clergyman who had lived permanently in this
+part of the house. He was probably wheeled from his bedroom to his
+sitting-room, and in this cheerless chamber had spent the last years of
+his life. And this place was Deans Folly? She took up the telegraph form
+and after a few minutes' deliberation wrote:</p>
+
+<p>"To Beale, Krooman Mansions."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p><p>She scratched that out, remembering that he had a telegraphic address
+and substituted:</p>
+
+<p>"Belocity, London." She thought a moment, then wrote: "Am imprisoned at
+Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines. Oliva." That looked too
+bold, and she added "Cresswell."</p>
+
+<p>She took a florin from her bag and wrapped it up in the telegraph form.
+She had no exact idea as to how she should get the message sent to the
+telegraph office, and it was Sunday, when all telegraph offices would be
+closed. Nor was there any immediate prospect of her finding a messenger.
+She supposed that tradesmen came to the house and that the kitchen door
+was somewhere under her window, but tradesmen do not call on Sundays.
+She held the little package irresolutely in her hand. She must take her
+chance to-day. To-morrow would be Monday and it was certain somebody
+would call.</p>
+
+<p>With this assurance she tucked the message into her blouse. She was in
+no mood to continue her inspection of the room, and it was only because
+in looking again from the window she pulled it from its hook that she
+saw the strange-looking instrument which hung between the window and the
+service lift. She picked it up, a dusty-looking thing. It consisted of a
+short vulcanite handle, from which extended two flat steel supports,
+terminating in vulcanite ear-plates. The handle was connected by a green
+cord with a plug in the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Oliva recognized it. It was an electrophone. One of those instruments by
+which stay-at-home people can listen to an opera, a theatrical
+entertainment or&mdash;a sermon. Of course it was a church. It was a very
+common practice for invalids to be connected up with their favourite
+pulpit, and doubtless the Rev. Mr. Stringer had derived considerable
+comfort from this invention.</p>
+
+<p>She dusted the receiver and put them to her ears. She heard nothing.
+Beneath the plug was a little switch. She turned this over and instantly
+her ears were filled with a strange hollow sound&mdash;the sound which a bad
+gramophone record makes.</p>
+
+<p>Then she realized that she was listening to a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>congregation singing.
+This ceased after awhile and she heard a cough, so surprisingly near and
+loud that she started. Of course, the transmitter would be in the
+pulpit, she thought. Then a voice spoke, clear and distinct, yet with
+that drawl which is the peculiar property of ministers of the
+Established Church. She smiled as the first words came to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I publish the banns of marriage between Henry Colebrook, and Jane Maria
+Smith both of this parish. This is the second time of asking." A pause,
+then: "Also between Henry Victor Vanden and Oliva Cresswell Pr&eacute;deaux,
+both of this parish. This is the third time of asking. If any of you
+know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined
+together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it."</p>
+
+<p>She dropped the instrument with a crash and stood staring down at it.
+She had been listening to the publication of her own wedding-notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Vanden" was van Heerden. "Oliva Cresswell Pr&eacute;deaux" was herself. The
+strangeness of the names meant nothing. She guessed rather than knew
+that the false name would not be any insuperable bar to the ceremony.
+She must get away. For the first time she had a horrible sense of being
+trapped, and for a few seconds she must have lost her head, for she
+tugged at the iron bars, dashed wildly out and hammered at the sliding
+door. Presently her reason took charge. She heard the heavy step of
+Gregory on the stairs and recovered her calm by the time he had unlocked
+the bar and pulled the doors apart.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to let me out of here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is that all?" he said sarcastically, and for the second time that
+day slammed the door in her face.</p>
+
+<p>She waited until he was out of hearing, then she went back noiselessly
+to the sitting-room. She pushed open the door of the service lift and
+tested the ropes. There were two, one which supported the lift and one
+by which it was hauled up, and she gathered that these with the lift
+itself formed an endless chain.</p>
+
+<p>Gripping both ropes firmly she crept into the confined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> space of the
+cupboard and let herself down hand over hand. She had about twelve feet
+to descend before she reached the kitchen entrance of the elevator. She
+squeezed through the narrow opening and found herself in a stone-flagged
+kitchen. It was empty. A small fire glowed in the grate. Her own tray
+with all the crockery unwashed was on the dresser, and there were the
+remnants of a meal at one end of the plain table. She tiptoed across the
+kitchen to the door. It was bolted top and bottom and locked.
+Fortunately the key was in the lock, and in two minutes she was outside
+in a small courtyard beneath the level of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>One end of the courtyard led past another window, and that she could not
+risk. To her right was a flight of stone steps, and that was obviously
+the safer way. She found herself in a little park which fortunately for
+her was plentifully sprinkled with clumps of rhododendrons, and she
+crept from bush to bush, taking care to keep out of sight of the house.
+She had the telegram and the money in her hand, and her first object was
+to get this outside. It took her twenty minutes to reach the wall. It
+was too high to scale and there was no sign of a ladder. The only way
+out was the little brown door she had seen from her bedroom window, and
+cautiously she made her way back, flitting from bush to bush until she
+came to the place where a clear view of the door and the building to its
+left could be obtained.</p>
+
+<p>The low-roofed shed she had seen was much longer than she had expected
+and evidently had recently been built. Its black face was punctured at
+intervals with square windows, and a roughly painted door to the left of
+the brown garden gate was the only entrance she could see. She looked
+for a key but without hope of finding one. She must take her chance, she
+thought, and a quick run brought her from the cover of the bushes to the
+brown portal which stood between her and liberty.</p>
+
+<p>With trembling hands she slid back the bolts and turned the handle. Her
+heart leapt as it gave a little. Evidently it had not been used for
+years and she found it was only held fast by the gravel which had
+accumulated beneath it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p><p>Eagerly she scraped the gravel aside with her foot and her hand was on
+the knob when she heard a muffled voice behind her. She turned and then
+with a gasp of horror fell back. Standing in the doorway of the shed was
+a thing which was neither man nor beast. It was covered in a wrap which
+had once been white but was now dappled with green. The face and head
+were covered with rubber, two green staring eyes surveyed her, and a
+great snout-like nose was uplifted as in amazement. She was paralysed
+for a moment. For the beastliness of the figure was appalling.</p>
+
+<p>Then realizing that it was merely a man whose face was hidden by a
+hideous mask, she sprang again for the door, but a hand gripped her arm
+and pulled her back. She heard a cheerful whistle from the road without
+and remembering the package in her hand she flung it high over the wall
+and heard its soft thud, and the whistle stop.</p>
+
+<p>Then as the hideous figure slipped his arm about her and pressed a musty
+hand over her mouth she fainted.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. BEALE SUGGESTS MARRIAGE</h3>
+
+<p>"Held up by a gunman?" asked James Kitson incredulously, "why, what do
+you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't sound right, does it?" smiled Beale, "especially after
+McNorton telling us the other day that there was no such thing as a
+gunman in England. Do you remember his long dissertation on the
+law-abiding criminals of this little old country?" he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But a gunman," protested Mr. Kitson&mdash;"by the way, have you had
+breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hours ago," replied Beale, "but don't let me interrupt you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p><p>Mr. James Kitson pulled his chair to the table and unfolded his napkin.
+It was almost at this hour that Oliva Cresswell had performed a similar
+act.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not interrupting me," said Kitson, "go on."</p>
+
+<p>Beale was frowning down at deserted Piccadilly which Mr. Kitson's
+palatial suite at the Ritz-Carlton overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he said absently, "oh yes, the gunman&mdash;a sure enough gunman."</p>
+
+<p>He related in a few words his experience of the previous night.</p>
+
+<p>"This man Homo," said Kitson, "is he one of the gang?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. He may be one of van Heerden's ambassadors."</p>
+
+<p>"Ambassadors?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will explain van Heerden's game one of these days and you will
+understand what I mean," said Beale. "No, I don't think that Parson Homo
+is being any more than a gentle knight succouring a distressed lady,
+whether for love of the lady, out of respect for the professor or from a
+general sense of antagonism to all detectives, I can only speculate.
+Anyway, he held me until the lady was out of hearing and presumably out
+of sight. And then there was no need for me to go. I just sat down and
+talked, and a more amiable and cultured gentleman it would be impossible
+to meet."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson looked at his companion through narrowed lids.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's not like you, Beale," he said. "I thought you were too hot
+on the scent to waste time."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am," said the other, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets,
+"that's just what I am." He turned suddenly to the older man. "Mr.
+Kitson, I've got to know a little more about John Millinborn's will than
+I know at present."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer looked up, fixed his glasses and regarded the younger man
+with a troubled look.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to jump in on you like this, but I'm rattled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> I don't
+understand much about the English law though I know that marriages
+aren't as easy to make here in London as they are in our country. But
+here as everywhere else it is fairly difficult to force a girl into
+marriage against her will, and the marriage of course is not good in
+law."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on the arm of a couch, dangling his hat between his legs,
+and ran his fingers through his hair with a nervous little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Here I'm telling you all that I came to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"Have a cup of tea," said Kitson, with a smile, "everybody in England
+rushes to tea and I hope I shall get you in the habit."</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right about the marriage," Kitson went on, "but I'll give you
+the law on the subject. A marriage can only be solemnized if due notice
+is given by the parties who must be resident in the district where it is
+to take place&mdash;three weeks is the period of notice."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no other way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. By paying special fees and offering a good and sufficient reason a
+faculty can be secured from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or rather from
+his officials, authorizing a marriage without notice. It is called a
+special licence, and the marriage may occur at any hour and at any
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a register of applications?" asked Beale quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I've thought of that," nodded the lawyer, "yes, I'm keeping that side
+under observation. It is difficult because officialdom isn't as obliging
+as it might be. My own view is that van Heerden will be married in the
+ordinary way, that is to say by giving notice. To secure his special
+licence he would be obliged to give his own name and be vouched for; he
+can be married in the ordinary way even if he gives a false name, which
+in all probability he will."</p>
+
+<p>"Would the marriage be legal if it was in a false name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely. In English law you may commit an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> offence by marrying in a
+wrong name, but it would not invalidate the marriage."</p>
+
+<p>Stanford Beale sat studying the pattern of the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any chance of two special licences being issued to marry the
+same girl?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"None&mdash;why do you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale did not reply immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"Something Homo said last night when I told him frankly that I was
+searching for Miss Cresswell. 'Oh,' said he, 'that's the lady that's
+marrying the doctor.' He wouldn't tell me more. But he gave me an idea
+to make sure that no special licence is issued to van Heerden. I shall
+apply for one myself."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"To marry the girl?" he gasped. "But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stanford Beale laughed a little bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, don't get up in the air, Mr. Kitson&mdash;I'm only thinking of Miss
+Cresswell. A special licence in my name would stop one of van Heerden's
+paths to easy money. Tell me, and this is what I came to ask you, under
+Millinborn's will, does the husband benefit directly by the marriage, or
+is he dependent upon what his wife gives him?'</p>
+
+<p>"He benefits directly," said Kitson after a pause, "on his marriage he
+receives exactly one-half of the girl's fortune. That was Millinborn's
+idea. 'Make the husband independent,' he said, 'do not put him in the
+humiliating position of dependence on his wife's generosity, and there
+will be a chance of happiness for them both.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;of course, van Heerden knows that. He has only to produce a
+marriage certificate to scoop in two and a half million dollars&mdash;that is
+half a million in English money. This is the secret of it all. He wants
+money immediately, and under the terms of the will&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"He gets it," said Kitson. "If he came to me to-morrow with proof of his
+marriage, even if I knew that he had coerced the girl into marriage, I
+must give him his share&mdash;van Heerden was pretty thorough when he put my
+dying friend through his examination." His face <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>hardened. "Heavens, I'd
+give every penny I had in the world to bring that fiend to the gallows,
+Beale!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice shook, and rising abruptly he walked to the window. Presently
+he turned. "I think there is something in your idea. Get the licence."</p>
+
+<p>"I will&mdash;and marry her," said Beale quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Marry her&mdash;I don't quite understand you?"</p>
+
+<p>For the first time there was suspicion in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kitson, I'm going to put all my cards on the table," said Beale
+quietly, "will you sit down a moment? There are certain facts which we
+cannot ignore. Fact one is that Oliva Cresswell is in the hands of a man
+who is absolutely unscrupulous, but has no other object in view than
+marriage. Her beauty, her charm, all the attractive qualities which
+appeal to most men and to all brutes have no appeal for him&mdash;to him she
+is just a money proposition. If he can't marry her, she has no further
+interest for him."</p>
+
+<p>"I see that," agreed the lawyer, "but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, please. If we knew where she was we could stop the marriage and
+indict van Heerden&mdash;but I've an idea that we shan't locate her until it
+is too late or nearly too late. I can't go hunting with a pack of
+policemen. I must play a lone hand, or nearly a lone hand. When I find
+her I must be in a position to marry her without losing a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to marry her to foil van Heerden, and after&mdash;to dissolve the
+marriage?" asked the lawyer, shaking his head. "I don't like that
+solution, Beale&mdash;I tell you frankly, I don't like it. You're a good man
+and I have every faith in you, but if I consented, even though I were
+confident that you would play fair, which I am, I should feel that I had
+betrayed John Millinborn's trust. It isn't because it is you, my son,"
+he said kindly enough, "but if you were the Archangel Gabriel I'd kick
+at that plan. Marriage is a difficult business to get out of once you
+are in it, especially in this country."</p>
+
+<p>Beale did not interrupt the older man.</p>
+
+<p>"Right, and now if you've finished I'll tell you my scheme," he said,
+"as I see it there's only a ghost of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> chance of our saving this girl
+from marriage. I've done my best and we&mdash;McNorton and I&mdash;have taken all
+the facts before a judge this morning. We got a special interview with
+the idea of securing a warrant for van Heerden's arrest. But there is no
+evidence to convict him on any single charge. We cannot connect him with
+the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, and although I pointed out that van
+Heerden admits that he knows where the girl is, the judge said, fairly I
+thought, that there was no law which compelled a man to divulge the
+address of his fianc&eacute;e to one who was a possible rival. The girl is of
+an age when she can do as she wishes, and as I understand the matter you
+have no legal status as a guardian."</p>
+
+<p>"None," said James Kitson, "that is our weak point. I am merely the
+custodian of her money. Officially I am supposed to be ignorant of the
+fact that Oliva Cresswell is Oliva Pr&eacute;deaux, the heiress."</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore our hands are tied," concluded Beale quietly. "Don't you see
+that my plan is the only one&mdash;but I haven't told you what it is. There's
+a man, a criminal, this Parson Homo who can help; I am satisfied that he
+does not know where the girl is&mdash;but he'll help for a consideration. As
+a matter of fact, he was pulled again. I am seeing him this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kitson frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"The gunman&mdash;how can he help you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you. This man, as I say, is known to the police as Parson
+Homo. Apparently he is an unfrocked priest, one who has gone under. He
+still preserves the resemblance to a gentleman"&mdash;he spoke slowly and
+deliberately; "in decent clothes he would look like a parson. I propose
+that he shall marry me to Miss Cresswell. The marriage will be a fake,
+but neither the girl nor van Heerden will know this. If my surmise is
+right, when van Heerden finds she is married he will take no further
+steps&mdash;except, perhaps," he smiled, "to make her a widow. Sooner or
+later we are bound to get him under lock and key, and then we can tell
+Miss Cresswell the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"In other words, you intend breaking the law and committing a serious
+offence," said Kitson, shaking his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> head. "I can't be a party to
+that&mdash;besides, she may not marry you."</p>
+
+<p>"I see that danger&mdash;van Heerden is a mighty clever fellow. He may be
+married before I trace them."</p>
+
+<p>"You say that Homo doesn't know about the girl, what does he know?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has heard of van Heerden. He has heard probably from the girl Hilda
+Glaum that van Heerden is getting married&mdash;the underworld do not get
+their news out of special editions&mdash;he probably knows too that van
+Heerden is engaged in some swindle which is outside the parson's line of
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he help you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Beale said with quiet confidence, "the man is broke and
+desperate. The police watch him like a cat, and would get him sooner or
+later. McNorton told me that much. I have offered him passage to
+Australia and &pound;500, and he is ready to jump at it."</p>
+
+<p>"You have explained the scheme?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had to," confessed Beale, "there was no time to be lost. To my
+surprise he didn't like it. It appears that even a double-dyed crook has
+scruples, and even when I told him the whole of my plan he still didn't
+like it, but eventually agreed. He has gone to Whitechapel to get the
+necessary kit. I am putting him up in my flat. Of course, it may not be
+necessary," he went on, "but somehow I think it will be."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson spread out his hands in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to consent," he said, "the whole thing was a mistake from
+the beginning. I trust you, Stanford," he went on, looking the other in
+the eye, "you have no feeling beyond an ordinary professional interest
+in this young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale dropped his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"If I said that, Mr. Kitson, I should be telling a lie," he said
+quietly. "I have a very deep interest in Miss Cresswell, but that is not
+going to make any difference to me and she will never know."</p>
+
+<p>He left soon after this and went back to his rooms. At four o'clock he
+received a visitor. Parson Homo,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> cleanly shaved and attired in a
+well-fitting black coat and white choker, seemed more real to the
+detective than the Parson Homo he had met on the previous night.</p>
+
+<p>"You look the part all right," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I do," said the other shortly; "what am I to do next?"</p>
+
+<p>"You stay here. I have made up a bed for you in my study," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"I would like to know a little more of this before I go any further,"
+Homo said, "there are many reasons why I want information."</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you the story," said Beale patiently, "and I am going to
+say right here that I do not intend telling you any more. You carry this
+thing through and I'll pay you what I agreed. Nobody will be injured by
+your deception, that I promise you."</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't worry me so much," said the other coolly, "as&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There came a knock at the door, an agitated hurried knock, and Beale
+immediately answered it. It was McNorton, and from force of habit Parson
+Homo drew back into the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Parson," said McNorton, "I knew you were here. What do you
+make of this?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Beale and laid on the table a piece of paper which had been
+badly crumpled and which he now smoothed out. It was the top half of a
+telegraph form, the lower half had been torn away.</p>
+
+<p>"'To Belocity, London,'" Beale read aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"That's you," interrupted McNorton, and the other nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"'To Belocity, London,'" he read slowly. "'Am imprisoned at Deans&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>At this point the remainder of the message had been torn off.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GOOD HERR STARDT</h3>
+
+<p>"Where is the rest?" said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the lot," replied McNorton grimly. "It's the only information
+you will get from this source for twenty-four hours."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't understand, it is undoubtedly Miss Cresswell's
+handwriting."</p>
+
+<p>"And 'Belocity' is as undoubtedly your telegraphic address. This paper,"
+he went on, "was taken from a drunken tramp&mdash;'hobo' you call 'em, don't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Kingston-on-Thames," said McNorton&mdash;"the man was picked up in the
+street, fighting drunk, and taken to the police station, where he
+developed delirium tremens. Apparently he has been on the jag all the
+week, and to-day's booze finished him off. The local inspector in
+searching him found this piece of paper in his pocket and connected it
+with the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, the matter being fresh in his
+mind, as only this morning we had circulated a new description
+throughout the home counties. He got me on the 'phone and sent a
+constable up to town with the paper this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm," said Beale, biting his lips thoughtfully, "she evidently gave the
+man the telegram, telling him to dispatch it. She probably gave him
+money, too, which was the explanation of his final drunk."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that is the case," said McNorton, "he had one lucid
+moment at the station when he was cross-examined as to where he got the
+money to get drunk, and he affirmed that he found it wrapped up in a
+piece of paper. That sounds true to me. She either dropped it from a car
+or threw it from a house."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the man very ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty bad," said the other, "you will get nothing out of him before
+the morning. The doctors had to dope him to get him quiet, and he will
+be some time before he is right."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p><p>He looked up at the other occupant of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Parson, you are helping Mr. Beale, I understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the other easily.</p>
+
+<p>"Returning to your old profession, I see," said McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>Parson Homo drew himself up a little stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you have anything against me you can pull me for it," he said
+insolently: "that's your business. As to the profession I followed
+before I started on that career of crime which brought me into contact
+with the crude representatives of what is amusingly called 'the law,' is
+entirely my affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get your wool off, Parson," said the other good-humouredly. "You
+have lost your sense of humour."</p>
+
+<p>"That's where you are wrong," said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my
+sense of decency."</p>
+
+<p>McNorton turned to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am imprisoned at Deans,'" repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in
+this country?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are a dozen of them," replied the police chief: "there's
+Deansgate in Manchester, Deanston in Perth, Deansboro', Deans
+Abbey&mdash;I've been looking them up, there is a whole crowd of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any 'Deans' near Kingston?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," replied the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is obviously the name of a house," said Beale. "I have noticed
+that in England you are in the habit of naming rather than numbering
+your houses, especially in the suburbs." He looked across to Parson
+Homo, "Can you help?"</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a vulgar burglar I might assist you," he said, "but my branch
+of the profession does not take me to the suburbs."</p>
+
+<p>"We will get a Kingston Directory and go through it," said McNorton; "we
+have one on the file at Scotland Yard. If&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Beale suddenly raised his hand to enjoin silence: he had heard a
+familiar step in the corridor outside.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>"That's van Heerden," he said in a low voice, "he has been out all the
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he been shadowed?" asked McNorton in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>"My man lost him," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He tiptoed along the passage and stood listening behind the door.
+Presently he heard the doctor's door close and came back.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had the best sleuth in America trailing him," he said, "and he
+has slipped him every time."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway," said McNorton, "this telegram disposes of the idea that she
+has gone to Liverpool. It also settles the question as to whether she
+went of her own free will. If his name were on that telegram," he said
+thoughtfully, "I would take a risk and pull him in."</p>
+
+<p>"I will give you something bigger to pull him for," Beale said, "once I
+have placed Miss Cresswell in safety."</p>
+
+<p>"The Green Rust?" smiled the police chief.</p>
+
+<p>"The Green Rust," said Beale, but he did not smile, "that's van
+Heerden's big game. The abduction of Miss Cresswell is merely a means to
+an end. He wants her money and may want it very badly. The more urgent
+is his need the sooner that marriage takes place."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is no clergyman in England who would marry them"&mdash;it was Homo
+who interrupted. "My dear friend, that sort of thing is not done except
+in story books. If the woman refuses her consent the marriage cannot
+possibly occur. As I understand, the lady is not likely to be cowed."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I am afraid of," said Beale, "she is all pluck&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, for he had heard the doctor's door close. In three strides
+he had crossed the hallway and was in the corridor, confronting his
+suave neighbour. Dr. van Heerden, carefully attired, was pulling on his
+gloves and smiled into the stern face of his rival.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he asked pleasantly, "any news of Miss Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I had any news of Miss Cresswell you would not be here," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p><p>"But how interesting," drawled the doctor. "Where should I be?"</p>
+
+<p>"You would be under lock and key, my friend," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor threw back his head and laughed softly.</p>
+
+<p>"What a lover!" he said, "and how reluctant to accept his dismissal! It
+may ease your mind to know that Miss Cresswell, whom I hope very soon to
+call Mrs. van Heerden, is perfectly happy, and is very annoyed at your
+persistence. I had a telegram from her this morning, begging me to come
+to Liverpool at the earliest opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lie," said Beale quietly, "but one lie more or less, I
+suppose, doesn't count."</p>
+
+<p>"A thoroughly immoral view to take," said the doctor with much severity,
+"but I see there is nothing to be gained by arguing with you, and I can
+only make one request."</p>
+
+<p>Beale said nothing but stood waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"It is this," said the doctor, choosing his words with great care: "that
+you call off the gentleman who has been dogging my footsteps to-day. It
+was amusing at first but now it is becoming annoying. Some of my
+patients have complained of this man watching their houses."</p>
+
+<p>"You've not seen a patient to-day, van Heerden," said Beale, "and,
+anyway, I guess you had better get used to being shadowed. It isn't your
+first experience."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked at him under lowered lids and smiled again.</p>
+
+<p>"I could save your man a great deal of trouble," he said, "and myself
+considerable exertion by giving him a list of the places where I intend
+calling."</p>
+
+<p>"He will find that out for himself," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish him greater success than he has had," replied the other, and
+passed on, descending the stairs slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Beale went back to his flat, passed to his bedroom and looked down into
+the street. He made a signal to a man at the corner and received an
+almost imperceptible answer. Then he returned to the two men.</p>
+
+<p>"This fellow is too clever for us, I am afraid, and London<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> with its
+tubes, its underground stations and taxi-cabs is a pretty difficult
+proposition."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose your man lost him in the tube," said McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two ways down, the elevator and the stairs, and it is mighty
+difficult to follow a man unless you know which way he is going."</p>
+
+<p>"But you were interrupted at an interesting moment. What are you going
+to tell us about the Green Rust?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can only tell you this," said Beale, "that the Green Rust is the
+greatest conspiracy against the civilized world that has ever been
+hatched."</p>
+
+<p>He looked sharply at Homo.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look at me," said the Parson, "I know nothing about it,
+unless&mdash;&mdash;" He stopped and frowned. "The Green Rust," he repeated, "is
+that old man Heyler's secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's in it," said Beale shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a swindle of some kind?" asked the Parson curiously. "It never
+struck me that Heyler was that kind of man."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no swindle in it so far as Heyler's concerned," said Beale,
+"it is something bigger than a swindle."</p>
+
+<p>A telephone bell rang and he took up the receiver and listened, only
+interjecting a query or two. Then he hung up the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"It is as I thought," he said: "the doctor's slipped again. Had a car
+waiting for him in Oxford Street and when he saw there were no taxi-cabs
+about, jumped in and was driven eastward."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get the number of the car?" asked McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>Beale smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not much use," he said, "he's probably got two or three
+number-plates."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go along to Kingston," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't be able to come with you," said McNorton, "I have a meeting
+with the commissioner at five."</p>
+
+<p>"Before you go," remarked Beale, "you might put your signature to this
+declaration of my <i>bona fides</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p><p>He laid on the table a blue foolscap blank.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" asked the surprised McNorton, "an application for a
+special licence&mdash;are you going to be married?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said the other cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem very cheerful about it. I presume you want me to testify
+to the urgency of the case. I am probably perjuring myself." He signed
+his name with a flourish. "When are you getting the licence and what's
+the hurry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am getting the licence to-morrow," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"And the lady's name is&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you had noticed it," smiled the other, deftly blotting and
+folding the form.</p>
+
+<p>"Not Miss Cresswell?" demanded the police chief in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell it is."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There are circumstances which may be brought to your official notice,
+McNorton," said the detective, "for the present it is necessary to keep
+my plan a secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Has it anything to do with the Green Rust?" asked the other jokingly.</p>
+
+<p>"A great deal to do with the Green Rust."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll get along," said McNorton. "I will telephone the Kingston
+police to give you all the assistance possible, but I am afraid you will
+learn nothing from the tramp till the morning, and perhaps not then."</p>
+
+<p>He took his leave soon after.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Homo, it is up to you and me," said Beale. "You will have to keep
+close to me after to-morrow. Make yourself at home here until I come
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," said Homo, as Beale rose and gathered up his hat and
+gloves to depart. "Before you go I want you to understand clearly that I
+am taking on this job because it offers me a chance that I haven't had
+since I fell from grace, if you will excuse the <i>clich&eacute;</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"That I understand," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"I may be doing you a very bad turn."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take that risk," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p><p>"On your own head be it," said Homo, his hard face creased in a
+fleeting smile.</p>
+
+<p>Beale's car was waiting, but his departure was unexpectedly delayed. As
+he passed down the stairs into the vestibule he saw a stranger standing
+near the door reading the enamelled name-plates affixed to the wall.
+Something in his appearance arrested Beale. The man was well dressed in
+the sense that his clothes were new and well cut, but the pattern of the
+cloth, no less than the startling yellowness of the boots and that
+unmistakable sign-manual of the foreigner, the shape and colour of the
+cravat, stamped him as being neither American nor British.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I be of any assistance?" asked Beale. "Are you looking for
+somebody?"</p>
+
+<p>The visitor turned a pink face to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good," he said with the faint trace of an accent. "I
+understand that Doctor van Heerden lives here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he lives here," said Beale, "but I am afraid he is not at home."</p>
+
+<p>He thought it might be a patient or a summons to a patient.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at home?" The man's face fell. "But how unfortunate! Could you tell
+me where I can find him, my business is immediate and I have come a long
+way."</p>
+
+<p>From Germany, guessed Beale. The mail train was due at Charing Cross
+half an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a friend of Doctor van Heerden and possibly I can assist you. Is
+the business very important? Does it concern," he hesitated, "the Green
+Rust?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke the last sentence in German and the man started and looked at
+him with mingled suspicion and uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a matter of the greatest importance," he repeated, "it is of
+vital importance."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in German.</p>
+
+<p>"About the Green Rust?" asked Beale, in the same language.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know anything of the Green Rust," said the man hurriedly. "I
+am merely the bearer of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>communication which is of the greatest
+importance." He repeated the words&mdash;"the greatest importance."</p>
+
+<p>"If you give me the letter," said Beale, "I will see that it is sent on
+to him," and he held out his hand with the assurance of one who shared
+the dearest secrets of the doctor. The stranger's hand wandered to his
+breast pocket, but came back empty.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it must be given&mdash;I must see the doctor himself," he said. "He does
+not expect me and I will wait."</p>
+
+<p>Beale thought quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps you will come upstairs to my flat and wait," he said
+genially, and led the way, and the man, still showing evidence of
+uneasiness, was ushered into his room, where the sight of the Rev.
+Parson Homo tended to reassure him.</p>
+
+<p>Would he have tea? He would not have tea. Would he take coffee? He would
+not take coffee. A glass of wine perhaps? No, he did not drink wine nor
+beer, nor would he take any refreshment whatever.</p>
+
+<p>"My man," thought the desperate Beale, "I either chloroform you or hit
+you on the head with the poker, but I am going to see that letter."</p>
+
+<p>As if divining his thought, but placing thereon a wrong construction,
+the man said:</p>
+
+<p>"I should avail myself of your kindness to deliver my letter to Doctor
+van Heerden, but of what service would it be since it is only a letter
+introducing me to the good doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is that all?" said Beale, disappointed, and somehow he knew the man
+spoke the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all," he said, "except of course my message, which is verbal.
+My name is Stardt, you may have heard the doctor speak of me. We have
+had some correspondence."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I remember," lied Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"The message is for him alone, of course, as you will understand, and if
+I deliver it to you," smiled Herr Stardt, "you should not understand it,
+because it is one word."</p>
+
+<p>"One word?" said Beale blankly. "A code&mdash;hang!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PAWN TICKET</h3>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell awoke to consciousness as she was being carried up the
+stairs of the house. She may have recovered sooner, for she retained a
+confused impression of being laid down amidst waving grasses and of
+hearing somebody grunt that she was heavier than he thought.</p>
+
+<p>Also she remembered as dimly the presence of Dr. van Heerden standing
+over her, and he was wearing a long grey dust-coat.</p>
+
+<p>As her captor kicked open the door of her room she scrambled out of his
+arms and leant against the bed-rail for support.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right," she said breathlessly, "it was foolish to faint,
+but&mdash;but you frightened me."</p>
+
+<p>The man grinned, and seemed about to speak, but a sharp voice from the
+landing called him, and he went out, slamming the door behind him. She
+crossed to the bath-room, bathed her face in cold water and felt better,
+though she was still a little giddy.</p>
+
+<p>Then she sat down to review the situation, and in that review two
+figures came alternately into prominence&mdash;van Heerden and Beale.</p>
+
+<p>She was an eminently sane girl. She had had the beginnings of what might
+have been an unusually fine education, had it not been interrupted by
+the death of her foster-mother. She had, too, the advantage which the
+finished young lady does not possess, of having grafted to the wisdom of
+the schools the sure understanding of men and things which personal
+contact with struggling humanity can alone give to us.</p>
+
+<p>The great problems of life had been sprung upon her with all their
+hideous realism, and through all she had retained her poise and her
+clear vision. Many of the phenomena represented by man's attitude to
+woman she could understand, but that a man who admittedly did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> not love
+her and had no other apparent desire than to rid himself of the incubus
+of a wife as soon as he was wed, should wish to marry her was
+incomprehensible. That he had already published the banns of her
+marriage left her gasping at his audacity. Strange how her thoughts
+leapt all the events of the morning: the wild rush to escape, the
+struggle with the hideously masked man, and all that went before or
+followed, and went back to the night before.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow she knew that van Heerden had told her the truth, and that there
+was behind this act of his a deeper significance than she could grasp.
+She remembered what he had said about Beale, and flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"You're silly, Matilda," she said to herself, employing the term of
+address which she reserved for moments of self-depreciation, "here is a
+young man you have only met half a dozen times, who is probably a very
+nice married policeman with a growing family and you are going hot and
+cold at the suggestion that you're in love with him." She shook her head
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>And yet upon Beale all her thoughts were centred, and however they might
+wander it was to Beale they returned. She could analyse that buoyancy
+which had asserted itself, that confidence which had suddenly become a
+mental armour, which repelled every terrifying thought, to this faith
+she had in a man, who in a few weeks before she had looked upon as an
+incorrigible drunkard.</p>
+
+<p>She had time for thought, and really, though this she did not
+acknowledge, she desperately needed the occupation of that thought. What
+was Beale's business? Why did he employ her to copy out this list of
+American and Canadian statistics? Why did he want to know all these
+hotels, their proprietors, the chief of the police and the like? She
+wished she had her papers and books so that she might go on extracting
+that interminable list.</p>
+
+<p>What would van Heerden do now? Would her attempted escape change his
+plans? How would he overcome the difficulty of marrying a girl who was
+certain to denounce him in the presence of so independent a witness as a
+clergyman? She would die before she married him, she told herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>She could not rest, and walked about the room examining the framed
+prints and looking at the books, and occasionally walking to the glass
+above the dressing-chest to see if any sign was left of the red mark on
+her cheek where van Heerden's hand had fallen. This exercise gave her a
+curious satisfaction, and when she saw that the mark had subsided and
+was blending more to the colour of her skin she felt disappointed.
+Startled, she analysed this curious mental attitude and again came to
+Beale. She wanted Beale to see the place. She wanted Beale's sympathy.
+She wanted Beale's rage&mdash;she was sure he would rage.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed to herself and for want of other and better amusement walked
+to the drawers in the dressing-bureau and examined their contents. They
+were empty and unlocked save one, which refused to respond to her tug.
+She remembered she had a small bunch of keys in her bag.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to be impertinent. Forgive the liberty," she said, as she
+felt the lock give to the first attempt.</p>
+
+<p>She pulled the drawer open. It contained a few articles of feminine
+attire and a thick black leather portfolio. She lifted this out, laid it
+on the table and opened it. It was filled with foolscap. Written on the
+cover was the word "Argentine" and somehow the writing was familiar to
+her. It was a bold hand, obviously feminine.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have I seen that before?" she asked, and knit her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>She turned the first leaf and read:</p>
+
+<p>"Alsigar Hotel, Fournos, Proprietor, Miguel Porcorini. Index 2."</p>
+
+<p>Her mouth opened in astonishment and she ran down the list. She took out
+another folder. It was marked "Canada," and she turned the leaves
+rapidly. She recognized this work. It was the same work that Beale had
+given to her, a list of the hotels, their proprietors and means of
+conveyance, but there was no reference to the police. And then it dawned
+upon her. An unusually long description produced certain characteristics
+of writing which she recognized.</p>
+
+<p>"Hilda Glaum!" she said. "I wonder what this means!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p><p>She examined the contents of the drawer again and some of them puzzled
+her. Not the little stack of handkerchiefs, the folded collars and the
+like. If Hilda Glaum was in the habit of visiting Deans Folly and used
+this room it was natural that these things should be here. If this were
+her bureau the little carton of nibs and the spare note book were to be
+expected. It was the steel box which set her wondering. This she
+discovered in the far corner of the drawer. If she could have imagined
+anything so fantastic she might have believed that the box had been
+specially made to hold the thing it contained and preserve it from the
+dangers of fire. The lid, which closed with a spring catch, released by
+the pressure of a tiny button, was perfectly fitted so that the box was
+in all probability air-tight.</p>
+
+<p>She opened it without difficulty. The sides were lined with what seemed
+to be at first sight thick cardboard but which proved on closer
+inspection to be asbestos. She opened it with a sense of eager
+anticipation, but her face fell. Save for a tiny square blue envelope at
+the bottom, the box was empty!</p>
+
+<p>She lifted it in her hand to shake out the envelope and it was then that
+the idea occurred to her that the box had been made for the envelope,
+which refused to budge until she lifted one end with a hairpin.</p>
+
+<p>It was unsealed, and she slipped in her finger and pulled out&mdash;a pawn
+ticket!</p>
+
+<p>She had an inclination to laugh which she checked. She examined the
+ticket curiously. It announced the fact that Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros.,
+of Commercial Road, London, had advanced ten shillings on a "Gents'
+Silver Hunter Watch," and the pledge had been made in the name of van
+Heerden!</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at it bewildered. He was not a man who needed ten shillings or
+ten dollars or ten pounds. Why should he pledge a watch and why having
+pledged it should he keep the ticket with such care?</p>
+
+<p>Oliva hesitated a moment, then slipped the ticket from its cover, put
+back the envelope at the bottom of the box and closed the lid. She found
+a hiding-place for the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> square pasteboard before she returned the
+box and portfolio to the drawer and locked it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a tap at the door and hastily she replaced the key in her bag.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She recognized the man who stood in the doorway as he who had carried
+her back to the room.</p>
+
+<p>There was a strangeness in his bearing which made her uneasy, a certain
+subdued hilarity which suggested drunkenness.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make a noise," he whispered with a stifled chuckle, "if Gregory
+hears he'll raise fire."</p>
+
+<p>She saw that the key was in the lock on the outside of the door and this
+she watched. But he made no attempt to withdraw it and closed the door
+behind him softly.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Bridgers," he whispered, "van Heerden has told you about
+me&mdash;Horace Bridgers, do you&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>He took a little tortoiseshell box from the pocket of his frayed
+waistcoat and opened it with a little kick of his middle finger. It was
+half-full of white powder that glittered in a stray ray of sunlight.
+"Try a sniff," he begged eagerly, "and all your troubles will
+go&mdash;phutt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no"&mdash;she shook her head, looking at him with a perplexed
+smile&mdash;"I don't know what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the white terror," he chuckled again, "better than the green&mdash;not
+so horribly musty as the green, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not in the mood for terrors of any kind," she said, with a
+half-smile. She wondered why he had come, and had a momentary hope that
+he was ignorant of van Heerden's character.</p>
+
+<p>"All right"&mdash;he stuffed the box back into his waistcoat
+pocket&mdash;"<i>you're</i> the loser, you'll never find heaven on earth!"</p>
+
+<p>She waited.</p>
+
+<p>All the time he was speaking, it seemed to her that he was on the <i>qui
+vive</i> for some interruption from below. He would stop in his speech to
+turn a listening ear to the door. Moreover, she was relieved to see he
+made no attempt to advance any farther into the room. That he was under
+the influence of some drug she guessed. His eyes glittered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> with
+unnatural brilliance, his hands, discoloured and uncleanly, moved
+nervously and were never still.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Bridgers," he said again. "I'm van Heerden's best man&mdash;rather a
+come down for the best analytical chemist that the school ever turned
+out, eh? Doing odd jobs for a dirty Deutscher!" He walked to the door,
+opened it and listened, then tiptoed across the room to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he whispered, "you're van Heerden's girl&mdash;what is the game?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is&mdash;&mdash;?" she stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the game? What is it all about? I've tried to pump Gregory and
+Milsom, but they're mysterious. Curse all mysteries, my dear. What is
+the game? Why are they sending men to America, Canada, Australia and
+India? Come along and be a pal! Tell me! I've seen the office, I know
+all about it. Thousands of sealed envelopes filled with steamship
+tickets and money. Thousands of telegraph forms already addressed. You
+don't fool me!" He hissed the last words almost in her face. "Why is he
+employing the crocks and the throw-outs of science? Perrilli, Maxon,
+Boyd, Heyler&mdash;and me? If the game's square why doesn't he take the new
+men from the schools?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, being, by now, less interested in such revelations
+as he might make, than in her own personal comfort. For his attitude was
+grown menacing ... then the great idea came to her. Evidently this man
+knew nothing of the circumstances under which she had come to the house.
+To him she was a wilful but willing assistant of the doctor, who for
+some reason or other it had been necessary to place under restraint.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you everything if you will take me back to my home," she
+said. "I cannot give you proofs here."</p>
+
+<p>She saw suspicion gather in his eyes. Then he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That won't wash," he sneered&mdash;"you know it all. I can't leave here," he
+said; "besides, you told me last time that there was nothing. I used to
+watch you working away at night," he went on to the girl's amazement.
+"I've sat looking at you for hours, writing and writing and writing."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>She understood now. She and Hilda Glaum were of about the same build,
+and she was mistaken for Hilda by this bemused man who had, in all
+probability, never seen the other girl face to face.</p>
+
+<p>"What made you run away?" he asked suddenly; but with a sudden resolve
+she brought him back to the subject he had started to discuss.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the use of my telling you?" she asked. "You know as much as I."</p>
+
+<p>"Only bits," he replied eagerly, "but I don't know van Heerden's game. I
+know why he's marrying this other girl, everybody knows that. When is
+the wedding?"</p>
+
+<p>"What other girl?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Cresswell or Pr&eacute;deaux, whatever she calls herself," said Bridgers
+carelessly. "She was a store girl, wasn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"But"&mdash;she tried to speak calmly&mdash;"why do you think he wants to marry
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be silly," he said, "you can't fool me. Everybody knows she's
+worth a million."</p>
+
+<p>"Worth a million?" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Worth a million." He smacked his lips and fumbled for the little box in
+his waistcoat pocket. "Try a sniff&mdash;you'll know what it feels like to be
+old man Millinborn's heiress."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound in the hall below and he turned with an exaggerated
+start (she thought it theatrical but could not know of the jangled
+nerves of the drug-soddened man which magnified all sound to an
+intensity which was almost painful).</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door and slid out&mdash;and did not close the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly she followed, and as she reached the landing saw his head
+disappear down the stairs. She was in a blind panic; a thousand formless
+terrors gripped her and turned her resolute soul to water. She could
+have screamed her relief when she saw that the sliding door was
+half-open&mdash;the man had not stopped to close it&mdash;and she passed through
+and down the first flight. He had vanished before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> she reached the
+half-way landing and the hall below was empty. It was a wide hall,
+stone-flagged, with a glass door between her and the open portal.</p>
+
+<p>She flew down the stairs, pulled open the door and ran straight into van
+Heerden's arms.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JEW OF CRACOW</h3>
+
+<p>If there were committed in London the crime of the century&mdash;a crime so
+tremendous that the names of the chief actors in this grisly drama were
+on the lips of every man, woman and talkative child in Europe&mdash;you might
+walk into a certain department of Scotland Yard with the assurance that
+you would not meet within the confining walls of that bureau any police
+officer who was interested in the slightest, or who, indeed, had even
+heard of the occurrence save by accident. This department is known as
+the Parley Voos or P.V. Department, and concerns itself only in
+suspicious events beyond the territorial waters of Great Britain and
+Ireland. Its body is on the Thames Embankment, but its soul is at the
+Central Office, or at the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; or even at the Yamen of the police
+minister of Pekin.</p>
+
+<p>It is sublimely ignorant of the masters of crime who dwell beneath the
+shadows of the Yard, but it could tell you, without stopping to look up
+reference, not only the names of the known gunmen of New York, but the
+composition of almost every secret society in China.</p>
+
+<p>A Pole had a quarrel with a Jew in the streets of Cracow, and they
+quarrelled over the only matter which is worthy of quarrel in that part
+of Poland. The sum in dispute was the comparatively paltry one of 260
+Kronen, but when the Jew was taken in a dying condition to the hospital
+he made a statement which was so curious that the Chief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> of Police in
+Cracow sent it on to Vienna and Vienna sent it to Berne and Berne
+scratched its chin thoughtfully and sent it forward to Paris, where it
+was distributed to Rio de Janeiro, New York, and London.</p>
+
+<p>The Assistant Chief of the P.V. Department came out of his room and
+drifted aimlessly into the uncomfortable bureau of Mr. McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a curious yarn through from Cracow," he said, "which might
+interest your friend Beale."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked McNorton, who invariably found the stories of the
+P.V. Department fascinating but profitless.</p>
+
+<p>"A man was murdered," said the P.V. man lightly, as though that were the
+least important feature of the story, "but before he pegged out he made
+a will or an assignment of his property to his son, in the course of
+which he said that none of his stocks&mdash;he was a corn factor&mdash;were to be
+sold under one thousand Kronen a bushel. That's about &pound;30."</p>
+
+<p>"Corn at &pound;30 a bushel?" said McNorton. "Was he delirious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said the other. "He was a very well-known man in Cracow,
+one Zibowski, who during the late war was principal buying agent for the
+German Government. The Chief of the Police at Cracow apparently asked
+him if he wasn't suffering from illusions, and the man then made a
+statement that the German Government had an option on all the grain in
+Galicia, Hungary and the Ukraine at a lower price. Zibowski held out for
+better terms. It is believed that he was working with a member of the
+German Government who made a fortune in the war out of army contracts.
+In fact, he as good as let this out just before he died, when he spoke
+in his delirium of a wonderful invention which was being worked on
+behalf of the German Government, an invention called the Green Rust."</p>
+
+<p>McNorton whistled.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said the P.V. man. "I seem to remember that Beale had made
+one or two mysterious references to the Rust. Where is he now?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>"He left town last night," replied McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you get in touch with him?"</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are sending on a copy of this communication to the
+Cabinet," he said&mdash;"it may be rather serious. Whatever the scheme is, it
+is being worked in London, and van Heerden is the chief operator."</p>
+
+<p>He took down his hat and went out in search of Kitson, whom he found in
+the lobby of the hotel. James Kitson came toward him eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you news of Beale?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was at Kingston this morning," said McNorton, "with Parson Homo, but
+he had left. I was on the 'phone to the inspector at Kingston, who did
+not know very much and could give me no very definite news as to whether
+Beale had made his discovery. He interviewed the tramp early this
+morning, but apparently extracted very little that was helpful. As a
+matter of fact, I came to you to ask if he had got in touch with you."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see him about his Green Rust scare&mdash;Beale has gone
+single-handed into this matter," said the superintendent, shaking his
+head, "and he has played the lone game a little too long."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it very serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be an international matter," replied McNorton gravely, "all that
+we know at present is this. A big plot is on foot to tamper with the
+food supplies of the world and the chief plotter is van Heerden. Beale
+knows more about the matter than any of us, but he only gives us
+occasional glimpses of the real situation. I have been digging out van
+Heerden's record without, however, finding anything very incriminating.
+Up to a point he seems to have been a model citizen, though his
+associates were not always of the best. He has been seen in the company
+of at least three people with a bad history. Milsom, a doctor, convicted
+of murder in the 'nineties; Bridgers, an American chemist with two
+convictions for illicit trading in drugs; Gregory&mdash;who seems to be his
+factotum and general assistant, convicted in Manchester for saccharine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+smuggling; and a girl called Glaum, who is an alien, charged during the
+war for failing to register."</p>
+
+<p>"But against van Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. He has travelled a great deal in America and on the Continent.
+He was in Spain a few years ago and was suspected of being associated
+with the German Embassy. His association with the Millinborn murder you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know that," said James Kitson bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Beale will have to tell us all he knows," McNorton went on, "and
+probably we can tell him something he doesn't know; namely, that van
+Heerden conducts a pretty expensive correspondence by cable with all
+parts of the world. Something has happened in Cracow which gives a value
+to all Beale's suspicions."</p>
+
+<p>Briefly he related the gist of the story which had reached him that
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>"It is incredible," said Kitson when the chief had finished. "It would
+be humanly impossible for the world to buy at that price. And there is
+no reason for it. It happens that I am interested in a milling
+corporation and I know that the world's crops are good&mdash;in fact, the
+harvest will be well above the average. I should say that the Cracow Jew
+was talking in delirium."</p>
+
+<p>But McNorton smiled indulgently.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you're right," he said. "I hope the whole thing is a mare's nest
+and for once in my life I trust that the police clues are as wrong as
+hell. But, anyway, van Heerden is cabling mighty freely&mdash;and I want
+Beale!"</p>
+
+<p>But Beale was unreachable. A visit to his apartment produced no results.
+The "foreign gentleman" who on the previous day had called on van
+Heerden had been seen there that morning, but he, too, had vanished, and
+none of McNorton's watchers had been able to pick him up.</p>
+
+<p>McNorton shifted the direction of his search and dropped into the
+palatial establishment of Punsonby's. He strolled past the grill-hidden
+desk which had once held Oliva Cresswell, and saw out of the tail of his
+eye a stranger in her place and by her side the darkly taciturn Hilda
+Glaum.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p><p>Mr. White, that pompous man, greeted him strangely. As the police chief
+came into the private office Mr. White half-rose, turned deadly pale and
+became of a sudden bereft of speech. McNorton recognized the symptoms
+from long acquaintance with the characteristics of detected criminals,
+and wondered how deeply this pompous man was committed to whatever
+scheme was hatching.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;ah&mdash;Mr. McNorton!" stammered White, shaking like a leaf, "won't you
+sit down, please? To what&mdash;to what," he swallowed twice before he could
+get the words out, "to what am I indebted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just called in to look you up," said McNorton genially. "Have you been
+losing any more&mdash;registered letters lately?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White subsided again into his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes&mdash;no, I mean," he said, "no&mdash;ah&mdash;thank you. It was kind of you
+to call, inspector&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Superintendent," corrected the other good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand pardons, superintendent," said Mr. White hastily, "no, sir,
+nothing so unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>He shot a look half-fearful, half-resentful at the police officer.</p>
+
+<p>"And how is your friend Doctor van Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White twisted uncomfortably in his chair. Again his look of
+nervousness and apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr.&mdash;ah&mdash;van Heerden is not a friend of mine," he said, "a business
+acquaintance," he sighed heavily, "just a business acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The White he had known was not the White of to-day. The man looked
+older, his face was more heavily lined and his eyes were dark with
+weariness.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he's a pretty shrewd fellow," he remarked carelessly. "You
+are interested in some of his concerns, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only one, only one," replied White sharply, "and I wish to Heaven&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped himself.</p>
+
+<p>"And you wish you weren't, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the older man wriggled in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor van Heerden is very clever," he said; "he has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> great schemes, in
+one of which I am&mdash;ah&mdash;financially interested. That is all&mdash;I have put
+money into his&mdash;ah&mdash;syndicate, without, of course, knowing the nature of
+the work which is being carried out. That I would impress upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a trusting investor," said the good-humoured McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a child in matters of finance," admitted Mr. White, but added
+quickly, "except, of course, in so far as the finance of Punsonby's,
+which is one of the soundest business concerns in London, Mr. McNorton.
+We pay our dividends regularly and our balance sheets are a model for
+the industrial world."</p>
+
+<p>"So I have heard," said McNorton dryly. "I am interested in syndicates,
+too. By the way, what is Doctor van Heerden's scheme?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the slightest idea," he confessed with a melancholy smile. "I
+suppose it is very foolish of me, but I have such faith in the doctor's
+genius that when he came to me and said: 'My dear White, I want you to
+invest a few thousand in one of my concerns,' I said: 'My dear doctor,
+here is my cheque, don't bother me about the details but send in my
+dividends regularly.' Ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>His laugh was hollow, and would not have deceived a child of ten.</p>
+
+<p>"So you invested &pound;40,000&mdash;&mdash;" began McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty thousand!" gasped Mr. White, "how did you know?"</p>
+
+<p>He went a trifle paler.</p>
+
+<p>"These things get about," said McNorton, "as I was going to say, you
+invested &pound;40,000 without troubling to discover what sort of work the
+syndicate was undertaking. I am not speaking now as a police officer,
+Mr. White," he went on, and White did not disguise his relief, "but as
+an old acquaintance of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Say friend," said the fervent Mr. White. "I have always regarded you,
+Mr. McNorton, as a friend of mine. Let me see, how long have we known
+one another? I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> think the first time we met was when Punsonby's was
+burgled in '93."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long time," said McNorton; "but don't let us get off the subject
+of your investment, which interests me as a friend. You gave Doctor van
+Heerden all this money without even troubling to discover whether his
+enterprise was a legal one. I am not suggesting it was illegal," he
+said, as White opened his mouth to protest, "but it seems strange that
+you did not trouble to inquire."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course, I inquired, naturally I inquired, Mr. McNorton," said
+White eagerly, "it was for some chemical process and I know nothing
+about chemistry. I don't mind admitting to you," he lowered his voice,
+though there was no necessity, "that I regret my investment very much.
+We business men have many calls. We cannot allow our money to be tied up
+for too long a time, and it happens&mdash;ah&mdash;that just at this moment I
+should be very glad, very glad indeed, to liquidate that investment."</p>
+
+<p>McNorton nodded. He knew a great deal more about White's financial
+embarrassments than that gentleman gave him credit for. He knew, for
+example, that the immaculate managing director of Punsonby's was in the
+hands of moneylenders, and that those moneylenders were squeezing him.
+He suspected that all was not well with Punsonby's. There had been
+curious rumours in the City amongst the bill discounters that Punsonby's
+"paper" left much to be desired.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the nationality of van Heerden?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Dutch," replied Mr. White promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would stake my life on it," answered the heroic Mr. White.</p>
+
+<p>"As I came through to your office I saw a young lady at the cashier's
+desk&mdash;Miss Glaum, I think her name is. Is she Dutch, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Glaum&mdash;ah&mdash;well Miss Glaum." White hesitated. "A very nice,
+industrious girl, and a friend of Doctor van Heerden's. As a matter of
+fact, I engaged her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> at his recommendation. You see, I was under an
+obligation to the doctor. He had&mdash;ah&mdash;attended me in my illness."</p>
+
+<p>That this was untrue McNorton knew. White was one of those financial
+shuttlecocks which shrewd moneylenders toss from one to the other. White
+had been introduced by van Heerden to capital in a moment of hectic
+despair and had responded when his financial horizon was clearer by
+pledging his credit for the furtherance of van Heerden's scheme.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you know that as a shareholder in van Heerden's syndicate you
+cannot escape responsibility for the purposes to which your money is
+put," he said, as he rose to go. "I hope you get your money back."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think there is any doubt?" demanded White, in consternation.</p>
+
+<p>"There is always a doubt about getting money back from syndicates," said
+McNorton cryptically.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't go yet." Mr. White passed round the end of his desk and
+intercepted the detective with unexpected agility, taking, so to speak,
+the door out of his hands and closing it. "I am alarmed, Mr. McNorton,"
+he said, as he led the other back to his chair, "I won't disguise it. I
+am seriously alarmed by what you have said. It is not the thought of
+losing the money, oh dear, no. Punsonby's would not be ruined by&mdash;ah&mdash;a
+paltry &pound;40,000. It is, if I may be allowed to say so, the sinister
+suggestion in your speech, inspector&mdash;superintendent I mean. Is it
+possible"&mdash;he stood squarely in front of McNorton, his hands on his
+hips, his eyeglass dangling from his fastidious fingers and his head
+pulled back as though he wished to avoid contact with the possibility,
+"is it possible that in my ignorance I have been assisting to finance a
+scheme which is&mdash;ah&mdash;illegal, immoral, improper and contrary&mdash;ah&mdash;to the
+best interests of the common weal?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head as though he were unable to believe his own words.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is possible in finance," said McNorton with a smile. "I am
+not saying that Doctor van Heerden's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> syndicate is an iniquitous one, I
+have not even seen a copy of his articles of association. Doubtless you
+could oblige me in that respect."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't got such a thing," denied Mr. White vigorously, "the
+syndicate was not registered. It was, so to speak, a private concern."</p>
+
+<p>"But the exploitation of Green Rust?" suggested the superintendent, and
+the man's face lost the last vestige of colour it possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"The Green Rust?" he faltered. "I have heard the phrase. I know
+nothing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You know nothing, but suspect the worst," said McNorton. "Now I am
+going to speak plainly to you. The reason you know nothing about this
+syndicate of van Heerden's is because you had a suspicion that it was
+being formed for an illegal purpose&mdash;please don't interrupt me&mdash;you know
+nothing because you did not want to know. I doubt even whether you
+deceived yourself. You saw a chance of making big money, Mr. White, and
+big money has always had an attraction for you. There isn't a fool's
+scheme that was ever hatched in a back alley bar that you haven't
+dropped money over. And you saw a chance here, more tangible than any
+that had been presented to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I swear to you&mdash;&mdash;" began White.</p>
+
+<p>"The time has not come for you to swear anything," said McNorton
+sternly, "there is only one place where a man need take his oath, and
+that is on the witness-stand. I will tell you this frankly, that we are
+as much in the dark as you pretend to be. There is only one man who
+knows or guesses the secret of the Green Rust, and that man is Beale."</p>
+
+<p>"Beale!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have met the gentleman, I believe? I hope you don't have to meet
+him again. The Green Rust may mean little. It may mean no more than that
+you will lose your money, and I should imagine that is the least which
+will happen to you. On the other hand, Mr. White, I do not disguise from
+you the fact that it may also mean your death at the hands of the law."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p><p>White made a gurgling noise in his throat and held on to the desk for
+support.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only the haziest information as to what it is all about, but
+somehow"&mdash;McNorton knit his brows in a frown and was speaking half to
+himself&mdash;"I seem to feel that it is a bad business&mdash;a damnably bad
+business."</p>
+
+<p>He took up his hat from the table and walked to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether to say au revoir or good-bye," he said with
+twitching lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye&mdash;ah&mdash;is a very good old-fashioned word," said Mr. White, in an
+heroic attempt to imitate the other's good humour.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BRIDGERS BREAKS LOOSE</h3>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden sat by the side of the big four-poster bed, where the
+girl lay, and his cold blue eyes held a spark of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"You look very foolish," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Oliva Cresswell turned her head sharply so as to remove the man from her
+line of vision.</p>
+
+<p>More than this she could not do, for her hands and feet were strapped,
+and on the pillow, near her head, was a big bath-towel saturated with
+water which had been employed in stifling her healthy screams which
+marked her return to understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"You look very foolish," said the doctor, chewing at the end of his
+cigar, "and you look no more foolish than you have been. Bridgers let
+you out, eh? Nice man, Mr. Bridgers; what had he been telling you?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head again and favoured him with a stare. Then she looked
+at the angry red mark on her wrists where the straps chafed.</p>
+
+<p>"How Hun-like!" she said; but this time he smiled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p><p>"You will not make me lose my temper again, Little-wife-to-be," he
+mocked her; "you may call me Hun or Heinz or Fritz or any of the
+barbarous and vulgar names which the outside world employ to vilify my
+countrymen, but nothing you say will distress or annoy me. To-morrow you
+and I will be man and wife."</p>
+
+<p>"This is not Germany," she said scornfully. "You cannot make a woman
+marry you against her will, this is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The land of the free," he interrupted suavely. "Yes&mdash;I know those
+lands, on both sides of the Atlantic. But even there curious things
+happen. And you're going to marry me&mdash;you will say 'Yes' to the sleek
+English clergyman when he asks you whether you will take this man to be
+your married husband, to love and cherish and all that sort of thing,
+you'll say 'Yes.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall say 'No!'" she said steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"You will say 'Yes,'" he smiled. "I had hoped to be able to give
+sufficient time to you so that I might persuade you to act sensibly. I
+could have employed arguments which I think would have convinced you
+that there are worse things than marriage with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot think of any," she replied coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are singularly dense," said the doctor. "I have already told
+you the conditions under which that marriage will take place. There
+might be no marriage, you know, and a different end to this adventure,"
+he said, significantly, and she shivered.</p>
+
+<p>He said nothing more for five minutes, simply sitting biting at the
+cigar between his teeth and looking at her blankly, as though his
+thoughts were far away and she was the least of the problems which
+confronted him.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is absurd to ask you," he said suddenly, "but I presume you
+have not devoted any of your studies to the question of capital
+punishment. I see you haven't; but there is one interesting fact about
+the execution of criminals which is not generally known to the public,
+and it is that in many countries, my own for example, before a man is
+led to execution he is doped with a drug which I will call 'Bromocine.'
+Does that interest you?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p><p>She made no reply, and he laughed quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"It should interest you very much," he said. "The effect of Bromocine,"
+he went on, speaking with the quiet precision of one who was lecturing
+on the subject to an interested audience, "is peculiar. It reduces the
+subject to a condition of extreme lassitude, so that really nothing
+matters or seems to matter. Whilst perfectly conscious the subject goes
+obediently to his death, behaves normally and does just what he is
+told&mdash;in fact, it destroys the will."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you tell me this?" she asked, a sudden fear gripping her heart.</p>
+
+<p>He half-turned in his chair, reached out his hand and took a little
+black case from the table near the window. This he laid on the bed and
+opened, and she watched him, fascinated. He took a tiny bottle
+containing a colourless liquid, and with great care laid it on the
+coverlet. Then he extracted a small hypodermic syringe and a
+needle-pointed nozzle. He uncorked the bottle, inserted the syringe and
+filled it, then he screwed on the needle, pressed the plunger until a
+fine jet leapt in the air, then he laid it carefully back in the case.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you will not marry me and I presume that you would make a scene
+when I bring in the good English parson to perform the ceremony. I had
+hoped," he said apologetically, "to have given you a wedding with all
+the pomp and circumstance which women, as I understand, love. Failing
+that, I hoped for a quiet wedding in the little church out yonder." He
+jerked his head toward the window. "But now I am afraid that I must ask
+his reverence to carry out the ceremony in this house."</p>
+
+<p>He rose, leant over her and deftly pulled back her sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"If you scream I shall smother you with the towel," he said. "This won't
+hurt you very much. As I was going to say, you will be married here
+because you are in a delicate state of health and you will say 'Yes.'"</p>
+
+<p>She winced as the needle punctured the skin.</p>
+
+<p>"It won't hurt you for very long," he said calmly. "You will say 'Yes,'
+I repeat, because I shall tell you to say 'Yes.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p><p>Suddenly the sharp pricking pain in her arm ceased. She was conscious
+of a sensation as though her arm was being blown up like a bicycle tyre,
+but it was not unpleasant. He withdrew the needle and kept his finger
+pressed upon the little red wound where it had gone in.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do this to you again to-night," he said, "and you will not feel
+it at all, and to-morrow morning, and you will not care very much what
+happens. I hope it will not be necessary to give you a dose to-morrow
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not always be under the influence of this drug," she said
+between her teeth, "and there will be a time of reckoning for you, Dr.
+van Heerden."</p>
+
+<p>"By which time," he said calmly, "I shall have committed a crime so
+wonderful and so enormous that the mere offence of 'administering a
+noxious drug'&mdash;that is the terminology which describes the offence&mdash;will
+be of no importance and hardly worth the consideration of the Crown
+officers. Now I think I can unfasten you." He loosened and removed the
+straps at her wrists and about her feet and put them in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better get up and walk about," he said, "or you will be stiff.
+I am really being very kind to you if you only knew it. I am too big to
+be vindictive. And, by the way, I had an interesting talk with your
+friend, Mr. Beale, this afternoon, a persistent young man who has been
+having me shadowed all day." He laughed quietly. "If I hadn't to go back
+to the surgery for the Bromocine I should have missed our very
+interesting conversation. That young man is very much in love with
+you"&mdash;he looked amusedly at the growing red in her face. "He is very
+much in love with you," he repeated. "What a pity! What a thousand
+pities!"</p>
+
+<p>"How soon will this drug begin to act?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you frightened?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I should welcome anything which made me oblivious to your
+presence&mdash;you are not exactly a pleasant companion," she said, with a
+return to the old tone he knew so well.</p>
+
+<p>"Content yourself, little person," he said with simulated affection.
+"You will soon be rid of me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p><p>"Why do you want to marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you that now," he said: "Because you are a very rich woman
+and I want your money, half of which comes to me on my marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the man spoke the truth!" She sat up suddenly, but the effort made
+her head swim.</p>
+
+<p>He caught her by the shoulders and laid her gently down.</p>
+
+<p>"What man&mdash;not that babbling idiot, Bridgers?" He said something, but
+instantly recovered his self-possession. "Keep quiet," he said with
+professional sternness. "Yes, you are the heiress of an interesting
+gentleman named John Millinborn."</p>
+
+<p>"John Millinborn!" she gasped. "The man who was murdered!"</p>
+
+<p>"The man who was killed," he corrected. "'Murder' is a stupid, vulgar
+word. Yes, my dear, you are his heiress. He was your uncle, and he left
+you something over six million dollars. That is to say he left us that
+colossal sum."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't understand. What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your name is Pr&eacute;deaux. Your father was the ruffian&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know," she cried. "The man in the hotel. The man who died. My
+father!"</p>
+
+<p>"Interesting, isn't it?" he said calmly, "like something out of a book.
+Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do
+well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother
+died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty
+and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that that was the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"My father!" she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>She lay, her face as white as the pillow, her eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>"John Millinborn left a fortune for you&mdash;and I think that you might as
+well know the truth now&mdash;the money was left in trust. You were not to
+know that you were an heiress until you were married. He was afraid of
+some fortune-hunter ruining your young life as Pr&eacute;deaux ruined your
+mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> don't intend ruining your
+life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the
+capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it," she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from the chair and bent over her.</p>
+
+<p>"My young friend, you are going to sleep," he said to himself, waited a
+little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the
+girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who
+had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Bridgers," said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been
+talking."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who doesn't?" snarled the man.</p>
+
+<p>He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took
+a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously.</p>
+
+<p>"That stuff will kill you one of these days," said van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"It will make him better-tempered," growled the hairless man. "I don't
+mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between
+dopes that they get on my nerves."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Milsom speaks like a Christian and an artist," said Bridgers, with
+sudden cheerfulness. "If I didn't dope, van Heerden, I should not be
+working in your beastly factory, but would probably be one of the
+leading analytical chemists in America. But I'll go back to do my
+chore," he said rising. "I suppose I get a little commission for
+restoring your palpitating bride? Milsom tells me that it is she. I
+thought it was the other dame&mdash;the Dutch girl. I guess I was a bit
+dopey."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"You take too keen an interest in my affairs," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw! You're getting touchy. If I didn't get interested in something I'd
+go mad," chuckled Bridgers.</p>
+
+<p>He had reached that stage of cocaine intoxication when the world was a
+very pleasant place indeed and full of subject for jocularity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p><p>"This place is getting right on my nerves," he went on, "couldn't I go
+to London? I'm stagnating here. Why, some of the stuff I cultivated the
+other day wouldn't react. Isn't that so, Milsom? I get so dull in this
+hole that all bugs look alike to me."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden glanced at the man who was addressed as Dr. Milsom and the
+latter nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him go back," he said, "I'll look after him. How's the lady?" asked
+Milsom when they were alone.</p>
+
+<p>The other made a gesture and Dr. Milsom nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It's good stuff," he said. "I used to give it to lunatics in the days
+of long ago."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden did not ask him what those days were. He never pryed too
+closely into the early lives of his associates, but Milsom's history was
+public property. Four years before he had completed a "life sentence" of
+fifteen years for a crime which had startled the world in '99.</p>
+
+<p>"How are things generally?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"For the first time I am getting nervous," he said. "It isn't so much
+the fear of Beale that rattles me, but the sordid question of money. The
+expenses are colossal and continuous."</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't your&mdash;Government"&mdash;Milsom balked at the word&mdash;"haven't your
+friends abroad moved in the matter yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very hopeful there," he said. "I have been watching the papers
+very closely, especially the Agrarian papers, and, unless I am mistaken,
+there is a decided movement in the direction of support. But I can't
+depend on that. The marriage must go through to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"White is getting nervous, too," he went on. "He is pestering me about
+the money I owe him, or rather the syndicate owes him. He's on the verge
+of ruin."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom made a little grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he'll squeal," he said, "those kind of people always do. You'll
+have to keep him quiet. You say the marriage is coming off to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have notified the parson," said van Heerden. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> told him my fianc&eacute;e
+is too ill to attend the church and the ceremony must be performed
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom nodded. He had risen from the table and was looking out upon the
+pleasant garden at the rear of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"A man could do worse than put in three or four weeks here," he said.
+"Look at that spread of green."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to an expanse of waving grasses, starred with the
+vari-coloured blossoms of wild flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"I was never a lover of nature," said van Heerden, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>Milsom grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"You have never been in prison," he said cryptically. "Is it time to
+give your lady another dose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for two hours," said van Heerden. "I will play you at piquet."</p>
+
+<p>The cards were shuffled and the hands dealt when there was a scamper of
+feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a
+soiled white smock and his face was distorted with terror.</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieur, m'sieur," he cried, "that imbecile Bridgers!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong?" Van Heerden sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he is mad. He is dancing about the grounds, singing, and he has
+with him the preparation!"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden rapped out an oath and leapt through the door, the doctor at
+his heels. They took the short cut and ran up the steps leading from the
+well courtyard, and bursting through the bushes came within sight of the
+offender.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not dancing now. He was standing with open mouth, staring
+stupidly about him.</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped it, I dropped it!" he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need for van Heerden to ask what he had dropped, for the
+green lawn which had excited Milsom's admiration was no longer to be
+seen. In its place was a black irregular patch of earth which looked as
+though it had been blasted in the furnaces of hell, and the air was
+filled with the pungent mustiness of decay.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>OLIVA IS WILLING</h3>
+
+<p>It seemed that a grey curtain of mist hung before Oliva's eyes. It was a
+curtain spangled with tiny globes of dazzling light which grew from
+nothing and faded to nothing. Whenever she fixed her eyes upon one of
+these it straightway became two and three and then an unaccountable
+quantity.</p>
+
+<p>She felt that she ought to see faces of people she knew, for one half of
+her brain had cleared and was calmly diagnosing her condition, but doing
+so as though she were somebody else. She was emerging from a drugged
+sleep; she could regard herself in a curious impersonal fashion which
+was most interesting. And people who are drugged see things and people.
+Strange mirages of the mind arise and stranger illusions are suffered.
+Yet she saw nothing save this silvery grey curtain with its drifting
+spots of light and heard nothing except a voice saying, "Come along,
+come along, wake up." A hundred, a thousand times this monotonous order
+was repeated, and then the grey curtain faded and she was lying on the
+bed, her head throbbing, her eyes hot and prickly, and two men were
+looking down at her, one of them a big barefaced man with a coarse mouth
+and sunken eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it my father really?" she asked drowsily.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid of that second dose you gave her last night," said Milsom.
+"You are getting a condition of coma and that's the last thing you
+want."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right now," replied van Heerden, but his face was
+troubled. "The dose was severe&mdash;yet she seemed healthy enough to stand a
+three-minim injection."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right now, but she might as easily have died," he said.
+"I shouldn't repeat the dose."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no need," said van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"What time is it?" asked the girl, and sat up. She felt very weak and
+weary, but she experienced no giddiness.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>"It is twelve o'clock; you have been sleeping since seven last night.
+Let me see if you can stand. Get up."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed meekly. She had no desire to do anything but what she was
+told. Her mental condition was one of complete dependence, and had she
+been left to herself she would have been content to lie down again.</p>
+
+<p>Yet she felt for a moment a most intense desire to propound some sort of
+plan which would give this man the money without going through a
+marriage ceremony. That desire lasted a minute and was succeeded by an
+added weariness as though this effort at independent thought had added a
+new burden to her strength. She knew and was mildly amazed at the
+knowledge that she was under the influence of a drug which was
+destroying her will, yet she felt no particular urge to make a fight for
+freedom of determination. "Freedom of determination." She repeated the
+words, having framed her thoughts with punctilious exactness, and
+remembered that that was a great war phrase which one was constantly
+discovering in the newspapers. All her thoughts were like this&mdash;they had
+the form of marshalled language, so that even her speculations were
+punctuated.</p>
+
+<p>"Walk over to the window," said the doctor, and she obeyed, though her
+knees gave way with every step she took. "Now come back&mdash;good, you're
+all right."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, and did not flinch when he laid his two hands on her
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to be married this afternoon&mdash;that's all right, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, "that is all right."</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll say 'yes' when I tell you to say 'yes,' won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll say that," she said.</p>
+
+<p>All the time she knew that this was monstrously absurd. All the time she
+knew that she did not wish to marry this man. Fine sentences, pompously
+framed, slowly formed in her mind such as: "This outrage will not go
+unpunished, comma, and you will suffer for this, comma, Dr. van Heerden,
+full stop."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>But the effort of creating the protest exhausted her so that she could
+not utter it. And she knew that the words were stilted and artificial,
+and the working-cells of her brain whispered that she was recalling and
+adapting something she had heard at the theatre. She wanted to do the
+easiest thing, and it seemed absurdly easy to say "yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You will stay here until the parson comes," said van Heerden, "and you
+will not attempt to escape, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't attempt to escape," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie down."</p>
+
+<p>She sat on the bed and swung her feet clear of the ground, settling
+herself comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll do," said van Heerden, satisfied. "Come downstairs, Milsom, I
+have something to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>So they left her, lying with her cheek on her hand, more absorbed in the
+pattern on the wall-paper than in the tremendous events which
+threatened.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's the trouble?" asked Milsom, seating himself in his
+accustomed place by the table.</p>
+
+<p>"This," said van Heerden, and threw a letter across to him. "It came by
+one of my scouts this morning&mdash;I didn't go home last night. I cannot
+risk being shadowed here."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom opened the letter slowly and read:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"A man called upon you yesterday afternoon and has made several
+calls since. He was seen by Beale, who cross-examined him. Man
+calls himself Stardt, but is apparently not British. He is staying
+at Saraband Hotel, Berners Street."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Who is this?" asked Milsom.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare not hope&mdash;&mdash;" replied the doctor, pacing the room nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you dared, what form would your hope take?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you the other day," said van Heerden, stopping before his
+companion, "that I had asked my Government to assist me. Hitherto they
+have refused, that is why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> I am so desperately anxious to get this
+marriage through. I must have money. The Paddington place costs a small
+fortune&mdash;you go back there to-night, by the way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Milsom nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Has the Government relented?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I told you that certain significant items in the East
+Prussian newspapers seemed to hint that they were coming to my
+assistance. They have sent no word to me, but if they should agree they
+would send their agreement by messenger."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think this may be the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is likely."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have sent Gregory up to see the man. If he is what I hope he may be,
+Gregory will bring him here&mdash;I have given him the password."</p>
+
+<p>"What difference will it make?" asked Milsom. "You are on to a big
+fortune, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Fortune?" The eyes of Dr. van Heerden sparkled and he seemed to expand
+at the splendour of the vision which was conjured to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No fortune which mortal man has ever possessed will be comparable. All
+the riches of all the world will lie at my feet. Milliards upon
+milliards&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, a lot of money," said the practical Dr. Milsom. "'Umph! I
+don't quite see how you are going to do it. You haven't taken me very
+much into your confidence, van Heerden."</p>
+
+<p>"You know everything."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that in the safe of my office you have a thousand sealed
+envelopes addressed, as I gather, to all the scallywags of the world,
+and I know pretty well what you intend doing; but how do you benefit?
+And how do I benefit?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden had recovered his self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"You have already benefited," he said shortly, "more than you could have
+hoped."</p>
+
+<p>There was an awkward pause; then Milsom asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What effect is it going to have upon this country?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p><p>"It will ruin England," said van Heerden fervently, and the old
+criminal's eyes narrowed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Umph!" he said again, and there was a note in his voice which made van
+Heerden look at him quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"This country hasn't done very much for you," he sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"And I haven't done much for this country&mdash;yet," countered the other.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You're turning into a patriot in your old age," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Something like that," said Milsom easily. "There used to be a fellow at
+Portland&mdash;you have probably run across him&mdash;a clever crook named Homo,
+who used to be a parson before he got into trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I never met the gentleman, and talking of parsons," he said, looking at
+his watch, "our own padre is late. But I interrupted you."</p>
+
+<p>"He was a man whose tongue I loathed, and he hated me poisonously," said
+Milsom, with a little grimace, "but he used to say that patriotism was
+the only form of religion which survived penal servitude. And I suppose
+that's the case. I hate the thought of putting this country in wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get over your scruples," said the other easily. "You are putting
+yourself in right, anyway. Think of the beautiful time you're going to
+have, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I think of nothing else," said Milsom, "but still&mdash;&mdash;" He shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden had taken up the paper he had brought down and was reading
+it, and Milsom noted that he was perusing the produce columns.</p>
+
+<p>"When do we make a start?"</p>
+
+<p>"Next week," said the doctor. "I want to finish up the Paddington
+factory and get away."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go to the Continent," replied van Heerden, folding up the paper
+and laying it on the table. "I can conduct operations from there with
+greater ease. Gregory goes to Canada. Mitchell and Samps have already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+organized Australia, and our three men in India will have ready
+workers."</p>
+
+<p>"What about the States?"</p>
+
+<p>"That has an organization of its own," Van Heerden said; "it is costing
+me a lot of money. All the men except you are at their stations waiting
+for the word 'Go.' You will take the Canadian supplies with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I take Bridgers?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't trust that fool. Otherwise he would be an ideal assistant for
+you. Your work is simple. Before you leave I will give you a sealed
+envelope containing a list of all our Canadian agents. You will also
+find two code sentences, one of which means 'Commence operations,' and
+the other, 'Cancel all instructions and destroy apparatus.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Will the latter be necessary?" asked Milsom.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be, though it is very unlikely. But I must provide against all
+contingencies. I have made the organization as simple as possible. I
+have a chief agent in every country, and on receipt of my message by the
+chief of the organization, it will be repeated to the agents, who also
+have a copy of the code."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems too easy," said Milsom. "What chance is there of detection?"</p>
+
+<p>"None whatever," said the doctor promptly. "Our only danger for the
+moment is this man Beale, but he knows nothing, and so long as we only
+have him guessing there is no great harm done&mdash;and, anyway, he hasn't
+much longer to guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems much too simple," said Milsom, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden had heard a footfall in the hall, stepped quickly to the
+door and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gregory?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"He is here," replied the other, and waved his hand to a figure who
+stood behind him. "Also, the parson is coming down the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Good, let us have our friend in."</p>
+
+<p>The pink-faced foreigner with his stiff little moustache<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> and his yellow
+boots stepped into the room, clicked his heels and bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I the honour of addressing Doctor von Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Van Heerden," corrected the doctor with a smile "that is my name."</p>
+
+<p>Both men spoke in German.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a letter for your excellency," said the messenger. "I have been
+seeking you for many days and I wish to report that unauthorized persons
+have attempted to take this from me."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden nodded, tore open the envelope and read the half a dozen
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>"The test-word is 'Breslau,'" he said in a low voice, and the messenger
+beamed.</p>
+
+<p>"I have the honour to convey to you the word." He whispered something in
+van Heerden's ear and Milsom, who did not understand German very well
+and had been trying to pick up a word or two, saw the look of exultation
+that came to the doctor's face.</p>
+
+<p>He leapt back and threw out his arms, and his strong voice rang with the
+words which the German hymnal has made famous:</p>
+
+<p>"Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt, Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt!"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thanking God about?" asked Milsom.</p>
+
+<p>"It's come, it's come!" cried van Heerden, his eyes ablaze. "The
+Government is with me; behind me, my beautiful country. Oh, Gott sei
+Dank!"</p>
+
+<p>"The parson," warned Milsom.</p>
+
+<p>A young man stood looking through the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"The parson, yes," said van Heerden, "there's no need for it, but we'll
+have this wedding. Yes, we'll have it! Come in, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He was almost boyishly jovial. Milsom had never seen him like that
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to hear your fianc&eacute;e is ill," said the curate.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, but that will not hinder the ceremony. I'll go myself and
+prepare her."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p><p>Milsom had walked round the table to the window, and it was he who
+checked the doctor as he was leaving the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," he said, "come here."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden detected a strain of anxiety in the other's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear somebody speaking?"</p>
+
+<p>They stood by the window and listened intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me," said the doctor, and he walked noiselessly and ascended
+the stairs, followed more slowly by his heavier companion.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MARRIAGE</h3>
+
+<p>A quarter of a mile from Deans Folly a motor-car was halted on the side
+of a hill overlooking the valley in which van Heerden's house was set.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the house," said Beale, consulting the map, "and that wall that
+runs along the road is the wall the tramp described."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to put a lot of faith in the statement of a man suffering from
+delirium tremens," said Parson Homo dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"He was not suffering from delirium tremens this morning. You didn't see
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>Homo shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I was in London fixing the preliminaries of your nuptials," he said
+sarcastically. "It may be the house," he admitted; "where is the
+entrance?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a road midway between here and the river and a private road
+leading off," said Beale; "the gate, I presume, is hidden somewhere in
+those bushes."</p>
+
+<p>He raised a pair of field-glasses and focused them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, the gate's there," he said. "Do you see that man?"</p>
+
+<p>Homo took the glasses and looked.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like a watcher," he said, "and if it is your friend's place the
+gate will be locked and barred. Why don't you get a warrant?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"He'd get wind of it and be gone. No, our way in is over the wall. The
+'hobo' said there's a garden door somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>They left the car and walked down the hill and presently came to a
+corner of the high wall which surrounded Deans Folly.</p>
+
+<p>Beale passed on ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the door," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He tried it gingerly and it gave a little.</p>
+
+<p>"It's clogged, and you won't get it open," said Homo; "it's the wall or
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Beale looked up and down the road. There was nobody in sight and he made
+a leap, caught the top of the wall and drew himself up. Luckily the
+usual <i>chevaux de frise</i> was absent. Beneath him and a little to the
+right was a shed built against the wall, the door of which was closed.</p>
+
+<p>He signalled Homo to follow and dropped to the ground. In a minute both
+men were sheltering in the clump of bushes where on the previous day
+Oliva had waited before making a dart for the garden door.</p>
+
+<p>"There's been a fire here," said Homo in a low voice, and pointed to a
+big ugly patch of black amidst the green.</p>
+
+<p>Beale surveyed it carefully, then wormed his way through the bushes
+until he was within reach of the ruined plot. He stretched out his hand
+and pulled in a handful of the debris, examined it carefully and stuffed
+it into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"You are greatly interested in a grass fire," said Homo curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aren't I?" replied Beale.</p>
+
+<p>They spent the next hour reconnoitring the ground. Once the door of the
+wall-shed opened, two men came out and walked to the house, and they had
+to lie motionless until after a seemingly interminable interval they
+returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> again, stopping in the middle of the black patch to talk.
+Beale saw one pointing to the ruin and the other shook his head and they
+both returned to the shed and the door closed behind them.</p>
+
+<p>"There's somebody coming down the main drive," whispered Homo.</p>
+
+<p>They were now near the house and from where they lay had a clear view of
+fifty yards of the drive.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a brother brush!" said Homo, in a chuckling whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" asked Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"A parson."</p>
+
+<p>"A parson?"</p>
+
+<p>He focused his glasses. Some one in clerical attire accompanied by the
+man whom Beale recognized as the guard of the gate, was walking quickly
+down the drive. There was no time to be lost. But now for the first time
+doubts assailed him. His great scheme seemed more fantastic and its
+difficulties more real. What could be easier than to spring out and
+intercept the clergyman, but would that save the girl? What force did
+the house hold? He had to deal with men who would stop short at nothing
+to achieve their purpose and in particular one man who had not hesitated
+at murder.</p>
+
+<p>He felt his heart thumping, not at the thought of danger, though danger
+he knew was all round, but from sheer panic that he himself was about to
+play an unworthy part. Whatever fears or doubts he may have had suddenly
+fell away from him and he rose to his knees, for not twenty yards away
+at a window, her hands grasping the bars, her apathetic eyes looking
+listlessly toward where he crouched, was Oliva Cresswell.</p>
+
+<p>Regardless of danger, he broke cover and ran toward her.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell," he called.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him across the concrete well without astonishment and
+without interest.</p>
+
+<p>"It is you," she said, with extraordinary calm.</p>
+
+<p>He stood on the brink of the well hesitating. It was too far to leap and
+he remembered that behind the lilac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> bush he had seen a builder's plank.
+This he dragged out and passed it across the chasm, leaning the other
+end upon a ledge of brickwork which butted from the house.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped quickly across, gripped the bars and found a foothold on the
+ledge, the girl standing watching him without any sign of interest. He
+knew something was wrong. He could not even guess what that something
+was. This was not the girl he knew, but an Oliva Cresswell from whom all
+vitality and life had been sapped.</p>
+
+<p>"You know me?" he said. "I am Mr. Beale."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are Mr. Beale," she replied evenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come to save you," he said rapidly. "Will you trust me? I want
+you to trust me," he said earnestly. "I want you to summon every atom of
+faith you have in human nature and invest it in me. Will you do this for
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will do this for you," she said, like a child repeating a lesson.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I want you to marry me." He realized as he said these words in what
+his fear was founded. He knew now that it was her refusal even to go
+through the form of marriage which he dared not face.</p>
+
+<p>The truth leapt up to him and sent the blood pulsing through his head,
+that behind and beyond his professional care for her he loved her. He
+waited with bated breath, expecting her amazement, her indignation, her
+distress. But she was serene and untroubled, did not so much as raise
+her eyelids by the fraction of an inch as she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I will marry you."</p>
+
+<p>He tried to speak but could only mutter a hoarse, "Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>He turned his head. Homo stood at the end of the plank and he beckoned
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Parson Homo came to the centre of the frail bridge, slipped a Prayer
+Book from his tail pocket and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearly beloved, we are come together here in the sight of God to join
+together this Man and this Woman in Holy Matrimony....</p>
+
+<p>"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> dreadful Day of
+Judgment when the secret of all hearts shall be disclosed that if either
+of you know any impediment why ye may not be joined together in
+Matrimony ye do now confess it."</p>
+
+<p>Beale's lips were tight pressed. The girl was looking serenely upward to
+a white cloud that sailed across the western skies.</p>
+
+<p>Homo read quickly, his enunciation beautifully clear, and Beale found
+himself wondering when last this man had performed so sacred an office.
+He asked the inevitable question and Beale answered. Homo hesitated,
+then turned to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband to live together after
+God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and
+serve him, love, honour and keep him in sickness and in health; and
+forsaking all others keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall
+live?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not immediately answer, and the pause was painful to the
+two men, but for different reasons. Then she suddenly withdrew her gaze
+from the sky and looked Homo straight in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"I will," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The next question in the service he dispensed with. He placed their
+hands together, and together repeating his words, they plighted their
+troth. Homo leant forward and again joined their hands and a note of
+unexpected solemnity vibrated in his voice when he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder."</p>
+
+<p>Beale drew a deep breath then:</p>
+
+<p>"Very pretty indeed," said a voice.</p>
+
+<p>The detective swung across the window to bring the speaker into a line
+of fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Put down your gun, admirable Mr. Beale." Van Heerden stood in the
+centre of the room and the bulky figure of Milsom filled the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Very pretty indeed, and most picturesque," said van Heerden. "I didn't
+like to interrupt the ceremony. Perhaps you will now come into the
+house, Mr. Beale, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> I will explain a few things to you. You need not
+trouble about your&mdash;wife. She will not be harmed."</p>
+
+<p>Beale, revolver still in hand, made his way to the door and was
+admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better come along, Homo," he said, "we may have to bluff this
+out."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden was waiting for him in the hall and invited him no farther.</p>
+
+<p>"You are perfectly at liberty to take away your wife," said van Heerden;
+"she will probably explain to you that I have treated her with every
+consideration. Here she is."</p>
+
+<p>Oliva was descending the stairs with slow, deliberate steps.</p>
+
+<p>"I might have been very angry with you," van Heerden went on, with that
+insolent drawl of his; "happily I do not find it any longer necessary to
+marry Miss Cresswell. I was just explaining to this gentleman"&mdash;he
+pointed to the pallid young curate in the background&mdash;"when your voices
+reached me. Nevertheless, I think it only right to tell you that your
+marriage is not a legal one, though I presume you are provided with a
+special licence."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is it illegal?" asked Beale.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered if Parson Homo had been recognized.</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place because it was not conducted in the presence of
+witnesses," said van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>It was Homo who laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid that would make it illegal but for the fact that you
+witnessed the ceremony by your own confession, and so presumably did
+your fat friend behind you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Milsom scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"You were always a bitter dog to me, Parson," he said, "but I can give
+you a reason why it's illegal," he said triumphantly. "That man is
+Parson Homo, a well-known crook who was kicked out of the Church fifteen
+years ago. I worked alongside him in Portland."</p>
+
+<p>Homo smiled crookedly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right up to a certain point, Milsom," he said, "but you are
+wrong in one essential. By a curious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> oversight I was never unfrocked,
+and I am still legally a priest of the Church of England."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" gasped Beale, "then this marriage is legal!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's as legal as it can possibly be," said Parson Homo complacently.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>BEALE SEES WHITE</h3>
+
+<p>"In a sense," said Lawyer Kitson, "it is a tragedy. In a sense it is a
+comedy. The most fatal comedy of errors that could be imagined."</p>
+
+<p>Stanford Beale sat on a low chair, his head in his hands, the picture of
+dejection.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind your kicks," he said, without looking up; "you can't say
+anything worse about me than I am saying about myself. Oh, I've been a
+fool, an arrogant mad fool."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson, his hands clasped behind his back under his tail coat, his
+gold-rimmed pince-nez perched on his nose, looked down at the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to tell you that I was against the idea from the
+beginning, because that is unnecessary. I ought to have put my foot down
+and stopped it. I heard you were pretty clever with a gun, Stanford. Why
+didn't you sail in and rescue the girl as soon as you found where she
+was?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there would have been a ghost of a chance," said the
+other, looking up. "I am not finding excuses, but I am telling you what
+I know. There were four or five men in the house and they were all
+pretty tough citizens&mdash;I doubt if I would have made it that way."</p>
+
+<p>"You think he would have married her?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>"He admitted as much," said Stanford Beale, "the parson was already
+there when I butted in."</p>
+
+<p>"What steps are you taking to deal with this man van Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale laughed helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot take any until Miss Cresswell recovers."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Beale," murmured Kitson, and the other went red.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess we'll call her Miss Cresswell, if you don't mind," he said
+sharply, "see here, Mr. Kitson, you needn't make things worse than they
+are. I can do nothing until she recovers and can give us a statement as
+to what happened. McNorton will execute the warrant just as soon as we
+can formulate a charge. In fact, he is waiting downstairs in the hope of
+seeing&mdash;&mdash;" he paused, "Miss Cresswell. What does the doctor say?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's sleeping now."</p>
+
+<p>"It's maddening, maddening," groaned Beale, "and yet if it weren't so
+horrible I could laugh. Yesterday I was waiting for a 'hobo' to come out
+of delirium tremens. To-day I am waiting for Miss Cresswell to recover
+from some devilish drug. I've made a failure of it, Mr. Kitson."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you have," said the other dryly; "what do you intend doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"But does it occur to you," asked Kitson slowly, "that this lady is not
+aware that she has married you and that we've got to break the news to
+her? That's the part I don't like."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can bet it doesn't fill me with rollicking high spirits,"
+snapped Beale; "it's a most awful situation."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" asked the other again.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" replied the exasperated Beale, "after all,
+you're her lawyer."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're her husband," said Kitson grimly, "which reminds me." He
+walked to his desk and took up a slip of paper. "I drew this out against
+your coming. This is a certified cheque for &pound;400,000, that is nearly two
+million dollars, which I am authorized to hand to Oliva's husband on the
+day of her wedding."</p>
+
+<p>Beale took it from the other's fingers, read it carefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> and tore it
+into little pieces, after which conversation flagged. After awhile Beale
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What do I have to do to get a divorce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the lawyer, "by the English law if you leave your wife and
+go away, and refuse to return to her she can apply to a judge of the
+High Court, who will order you to return within fourteen days."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd come back in fourteen seconds if she wanted me," said Beale
+fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"You're hopeless," said Kitson, "you asked how you could get a divorce.
+I presume you want one."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. I want to undo the whole of this horrible tangle. It's
+absurd and undignified. Can nothing be done without Miss Cresswell
+knowing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing can be done without your wife's knowledge," said Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in reminding the unhappy young man
+of his misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not blaming you," he said more soberly, "I blame myself. When I
+took this trust from poor John Millinborn I never realized all that it
+meant or all the responsibility it entailed. How could I imagine that
+the detective I employed to protect the girl from fortune hunters would
+marry her? I am not complaining," he said hastily, seeing the wrath rise
+in Beale's face, "it is very unfortunate, and you are as much the victim
+of circumstances as I. But unhappily we have not been the real victims."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said Beale, looking up at the ceiling, "if I were one of
+those grand little medi&aelig;val knights or one of those gallant gentlemen
+one reads about I should blow my brains out."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a solution," said Mr. Kitson, "but we should still have
+to explain to your wife that she was a widow."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have a cigar," said Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>He took two from his vest pocket and handed one to his companion, and
+his shrewd old eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"It's years and years since I read a romantic story,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> he said, "and I
+haven't followed the trend of modern literature very closely, but I
+think that your job is to sail in and make the lady love you."</p>
+
+<p>Beale jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that? Pshaw! It's absurd! It's ridiculous! She would never
+love me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why anybody should, least of all your wife," said Kitson,
+"but it would certainly simplify matters."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marry her all over again," said Kitson, sending a big ring of smoke
+into the air, "there's no law against it. You can marry as many times as
+you like, providing you marry the same woman."</p>
+
+<p>"But, suppose&mdash;suppose she loves somebody else?" asked Beale hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Why then it will be tough on you," said Kitson, "but tougher on her.
+Your business is to see that she doesn't love somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?"</p>
+
+<p>A look of infinite weariness passed across Kitson's face. He removed his
+glasses and put them carefully into their case.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, as a detective," he said, "you may be a prize exhibit, but as
+an ordinary human being you wouldn't even get a consolation prize. You
+have got me into a mess and you have got to get me out. John Millinborn
+was concerned only with one thing&mdash;the happiness of his niece. If you
+can make your wife, Mrs. Stanford Beale" (Beale groaned), "if you can
+make your good lady happy," said the remorseless lawyer, "my trust is
+fulfilled. I believe you are a white man, Beale," he said with a change
+in his tone, "and that her money means nothing to you. I may not be able
+to give a young man advice as to the best method of courting his wife,
+but I know something about human nature, and if you are not straight, I
+have made one of my biggest mistakes. My advice to you is to leave her
+alone for a day or two until she's quite recovered. You have plenty to
+occupy your mind. Go out and fix van Heerden, but not for his treatment
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> girl&mdash;she mustn't figure in a case of that kind, for all the
+facts will come out. You think you have another charge against him;
+well, prove it. That man killed John Millinborn and I believe you can
+put him behind bars. As the guardian angel of Oliva Cresswell you have
+shown certain lamentable deficiencies"&mdash;the smile in his eyes was
+infectious, and Stanford Beale smiled in sympathy. "In that capacity I
+have no further use for your services and you are fired, but you can
+consider yourself re-engaged on the spot to settle with van Heerden. I
+will pay all the expenses of the chase&mdash;but get him."</p>
+
+<p>He put out his hand and Stanford gripped it.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a great man, sir," he breathed.</p>
+
+<p>The old man chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"And you may even be a great detective," he said. "In five minutes your
+Mr. Lassimus White will be here. You suggested I should send for
+him&mdash;who is he, by the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"The managing director of Punsonby's. A friend of van Heerden's and a
+shareholder in his Great Adventure."</p>
+
+<p>"But he knows nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a tap at the door and a page-boy came into the sitting-room
+with a card.</p>
+
+<p>"Show the gentleman up," said Kitson; "it is our friend," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>"And he may know a great deal," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White stalked into the room dangling his glasses with the one hand
+and holding his shiny silk hat with the other. He invariably carried his
+hat as though it were a rifle he were shouldering.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed ceremoniously and closed the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr.&mdash;ah&mdash;Kitson?" he said, and advanced a big hand. "I received your
+note and am, as you will observe, punctual. I may say that my favourite
+motto is 'Punctuality is the politeness of princes."</p>
+
+<p>"You know Mr. Beale?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White bowed stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"I have&mdash;ah&mdash;met Mr. Beale."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p><p>"In my unregenerate days," said Beale cheerfully, "but I am quite sober
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"I am delighted to learn this," said Mr. White. "I am extremely glad to
+learn this."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kitson asked you to come, Mr. White, but really it is I who want to
+see you," said Beale. "To be perfectly frank, I learnt that you were in
+some slight difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"Difficulty?" Mr. White bristled. "Me, sir, in difficulty? The head of
+the firm of Punsonby's, whose credit stands, sir, as a model of sound
+industrial finance? Oh no, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Beale was taken aback. He had depended upon information which came from
+unimpeachable sources to secure the co-operation of this pompous
+windbag.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," he said. "I understood that you had called a meeting of
+creditors and had offered to sell certain shares in a syndicate which I
+had hoped to take off your hands."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White inclined his head graciously.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, sir," he said, "that I asked a few&mdash;ah&mdash;wholesale firms to
+meet me and to talk over things. It is also true that I&mdash;ah&mdash;had shares
+which had ceased to interest me, but those shares are sold."</p>
+
+<p>"Sold! Has van Heerden bought them in?" asked Beale eagerly; and Mr.
+White nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor van Heerden, a remarkable man, a truly remarkable man." He shook
+his head as if he could not bring himself and never would bring himself
+to understand how remarkable a man the doctor was. "Doctor van Heerden
+has repurchased my shares and they have made me a very handsome profit."</p>
+
+<p>"When was this?" asked Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"I really cannot allow myself to be cross-examined, young man," he said
+severely, "by your accent I perceive that you are of trans-Atlantic
+origin, but I cannot allow you to hustle me&mdash;hustle I believe is the
+word. The firm of Punsonby's&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Forget 'em," said Beale tersely. "Punsonby's has been on the verge of
+collapse for eight years. Let's get square, Mr. White. Punsonby's is a
+one man company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> and you're that man. Its balance sheets are faked, its
+reserves are non-existent. Its sinking fund is <i>spurlos versenkt</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I know Punsonby's&mdash;I've had the best accountants in London
+working out your position, and I know you live from hand to mouth and
+that the margin between your business and bankruptcy is as near as the
+margin between you and prison."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. White was very pale.</p>
+
+<p>"But that isn't my business and I dare say that the money van Heerden
+paid you this morning will stave off your creditors. Anyway, I'm not
+running a Pure Business Campaign. I'm running a campaign against your
+German friend van Heerden."</p>
+
+<p>"A German?" said the virtuous Mr. White in loud astonishment. "Surely
+not&mdash;a Holland gentleman&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a German and you know it. You've been financing him in a scheme to
+ruin the greater part of Europe and the United States, to say nothing of
+Canada, South America, India and Australia."</p>
+
+<p>"I protest against such an inhuman charge," said Mr. White solemnly, and
+he rose. "I cannot stay here any longer&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you go I'll lay information against you," said Beale. "I'm in dead
+earnest, so you can go or stay. First of all, I want to know in what
+form you received the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"By cheque," replied White in a flurry.</p>
+
+<p>"On what bank?"</p>
+
+<p>"The London branch of the Swedland National Bank."</p>
+
+<p>"A secret branch of the Dresdner Bank," said Beale. "That's promising.
+Has Doctor Van Heerden ever paid you money before?"</p>
+
+<p>By now Mr. White was the most tractable of witnesses. All his old
+assurance had vanished, and his answers were almost apologetic in tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Beale, small sums."</p>
+
+<p>"On what bank?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my own bank."</p>
+
+<p>"Good again. Have you ever known that he had an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> account elsewhere&mdash;for
+example, you advanced him a very considerable sum of money; was your
+cheque cleared through the Swedland National Bank?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir&mdash;through my own bank."</p>
+
+<p>Beale fingered his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"Money this morning and he took his loss in good part&mdash;that can only
+mean one thing." He nodded. "Mr. White, you have supplied me with
+valuable information."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust I have said nothing which may&mdash;ah&mdash;incriminate one who has
+invariably treated me with the highest respect," Mr. White hastened to
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"Not more than he is incriminated," smiled Stanford. "One more question.
+You know that van Heerden is engaged in some sort of business&mdash;the
+business in which you invested your money. Where are his factories?"</p>
+
+<p>But here Mr. White protested he could offer no information. He recalled,
+not without a sinking of heart, a similar cross-examination on the
+previous day at the hands of McNorton. There were factories&mdash;van Heerden
+had hinted as much&mdash;but as to where they were located&mdash;well, confessed
+Mr. White, he hadn't the slightest idea.</p>
+
+<p>"That's rubbish," said Beale roughly, "you know. Where did you
+communicate with van Heerden? He wasn't always at his flat and you only
+came there twice."</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you&mdash;&mdash;" began Mr. White, alarmed by the other's vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>"Assure nothing," thundered Beale, "your policies won't sell&mdash;where did
+you see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my honour&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's keep jokes outside of the argument," said Beale truculently,
+"where did you see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, I never saw him&mdash;if I had a message to send, my
+cashier&mdash;ah&mdash;Miss Glaum, an admirable young lady&mdash;carried it for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Hilda Glaum!"</p>
+
+<p>Beale struck his palm. Why had he not thought of Hilda Glaum before?</p>
+
+<p>"That's about all I want to ask you, Mr. White," he said mildly; "you're
+a lucky man."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky, sir!" Mr. White recovered his hauteur as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> quickly as Beale's
+aggressiveness passed. "I fail to perceive my fortune. I fail to see,
+sir, where luck comes in."</p>
+
+<p>"You have your money back," said Beale significantly, "if you hadn't
+been pressed for money and had not pressed van Heerden you would have
+whistled for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suggest," demanded White, in his best judicial manner, "do you
+suggest in the presence of a witness with a due appreciation of the
+actionable character of your words that Doctor van Heerden is a common
+swindler?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not common," replied Beale, "thank goodness!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>HILDA GLAUM LEADS THE WAY</h3>
+
+<p>Beale had a long consultation with McNorton at Scotland Yard, and on his
+return to the hotel, had his dinner sent up to Kitson's private room and
+dined amidst a litter of open newspapers. They were representative
+journals of the past week, and he scanned their columns carefully. Now
+and again he would cut out a paragraph and in one case half a column.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson, who was dining with a friend in the restaurant of the hotel,
+came up toward nine o'clock and stood looking with amusement at the
+detective's silent labours.</p>
+
+<p>"You're making a deplorable litter in my room," he said, "but I suppose
+there is something very mysterious and terrible behind it all. Do you
+mind my reading your cuttings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead," said Beale, without raising his eyes from his newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson took up a slip and read aloud:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The reserves of the Land Bank of the Ukraine have been increased
+by ten million roubles. This increase has very considerably eased
+the situation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> in Southern Ukraine and in Galicia, where there has
+been considerable unrest amongst the peasants due to the high cost
+of textiles."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That is fascinating news," said Kitson sardonically. "Are you running a
+scrap-book on high finance?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the other shortly, "the Land Bank is a Loan Bank. It finances
+peasant proprietors."</p>
+
+<p>"You a shareholder?" asked Mr. Kitson wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson picked up another cutting. It was a telegraphic dispatch dated
+from Berlin:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"As evidence of the healthy industrial tone which prevails in
+Germany and the rapidity with which the Government is recovering
+from the effects of the war, I may instance the fact that an order
+has been placed with the Leipzieger Spoorwagen Gesselshaft for
+60,000 box cars. The order has been placed by the L.S.G. with
+thirty firms, and the first delivery is due in six weeks."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That's exciting," said Kitson, "but why cut it out?"</p>
+
+<p>The next cutting was also dated "Berlin" and announced the revival of
+the "War Purchase Council" of the old belligerent days as "a temporary
+measure."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It is not intended," said the dispatch, "to invest the committee
+with all its old functions, and the step has been taken in view of
+the bad potato crop to organize distribution."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"What's the joke about that?" asked Kitson, now puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"The joke is that there is no potato shortage&mdash;there never was such a
+good harvest," said Beale. "I keep tag of these things and I know. The
+<i>Western Mail</i> had an article from its Berlin correspondent last week
+saying that potatoes were so plentiful that they were a drug on the
+market."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p><p>"H'm!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you read about the Zeppelin sheds?" asked Beale. "You will find it
+amongst the others. All the old Zepp. hangars throughout Germany are to
+be put in a state of repair and turned into skating-rinks for the
+physical development of young Germany. Wonderful concrete floors are to
+be laid down, all the dilapidations are to be made good, and the bands
+will play daily, wet or fine."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it all mean?" asked the bewildered lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"That The Day&mdash;the real Day is near at hand," said Beale soberly.</p>
+
+<p>"War?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against the world, but without the flash of a bayonet or the boom of a
+cannon. A war fought by men sitting in their little offices and pulling
+the strings that will choke you and me, Mr. Kitson. To-night I am going
+after van Heerden. I may catch him and yet fail to arrest his evil
+work&mdash;that's a funny word, 'evil,' for everyday people to use, but
+there's no other like it. To-morrow, whether I catch him or not, I will
+tell you the story of the plot I accidentally discovered. The British
+Government thinks that I have got on the track of a big thing&mdash;so does
+Washington, and I'm having all the help I want."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer world," said Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be queerer," responded Beale, then boldly: "How is my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your&mdash;well, I like your nerve!" gasped Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you preferred it that way&mdash;how is Miss Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p>"The nurse says she is doing famously. She is sleeping now; but she woke
+up for food and is nearly normal. She did not ask for you," he added
+pointedly.</p>
+
+<p>Beale flushed and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"My last attempt to be merry," he said. "I suppose that to-morrow she
+will be well."</p>
+
+<p>"But not receiving visitors," Kitson was careful to warn him. "You will
+keep your mind off Oliva and keep your eye fixed on van Heerden if you
+are wise. No man can serve two masters."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p><p>Stanford Beale looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the hour," he said oracularly, and got up.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll leave this untidiness for your man to clear," said Kitson. "Where
+do you go now?"</p>
+
+<p>"To see Hilda Glaum&mdash;if the fates are kind," said Beale. "I'm going to
+put up a bluff, believing that in her panic she will lead me into the
+lion's den with the idea of van Heerden making one mouthful of me. I've
+got to take that risk. If she is what I think she is, she'll lay a trap
+for me&mdash;I'll fall for it, but I'm going to get next to van Heerden
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson accompanied him to the door of the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>"Take no unnecessary risks," he said at parting, "don't forget that
+you're a married man."</p>
+
+<p>"That's one of the things I want to forget if you'll let me," said the
+exasperated young man.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the hotel he hailed a passing taxi and was soon speeding through
+Piccadilly westward. He turned by Hyde Park Corner, skirted the grounds
+of Buckingham Palace and plunged into the maze of Pimlico. He pulled up
+before a dreary-looking house in a blank and dreary street, and telling
+the cabman to wait, mounted the steps and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>A diminutive maid opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Miss Glaum in?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Will you step into the drawing-room. All the other boarders
+are out. What name shall I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her a gentleman from Krooman Mansions," he answered
+diplomatically.</p>
+
+<p>He walked into the tawdry parlour and put down his hat and stick, and
+waited. Presently the door opened and the girl came in. She stopped
+open-mouthed with surprise at the sight of him, and her surprise
+deepened to suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought&mdash;&mdash;" she began, and checked herself.</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I was Doctor van Heerden? Well, I am not."</p>
+
+<p>"You're the man I saw at Heyler's," she said, glowering at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my name is Beale."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, I've heard about you. You'll get nothing by prying here," she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall get a great deal by prying here, I think," he said calmly. "Sit
+down, Miss Hilda Glaum, and let us understand one another. You are a
+friend of Doctor van Heerden's?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall answer no questions," she snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you will answer this question," he said, "why did Doctor van
+Heerden secure an appointment for you at Punsonby's, and why, when you
+were there, did you steal three registered envelopes which you conveyed
+to the doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>Her face went red and white.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lie!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"You might tell a judge and jury that and then they wouldn't believe
+you," he smiled. "Come, Miss Glaum, let us be absolutely frank with one
+another. I am telling you that I don't intend bringing your action to
+the notice of the police, and you can give me a little information which
+will be very useful to me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie," she repeated, visibly agitated, "I did not steal anything.
+If Miss Cresswell says so&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell is quite ignorant of your treachery," said the other
+quietly; "but as you are determined to deny that much, perhaps you will
+tell me this, what business brings you to Doctor van Heerden's flat in
+the small hours of the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you insinuate&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I insinuate nothing. And least of all do I insinuate that you have any
+love affair with the doctor, who does not strike me as that kind of
+person."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes narrowed and for a moment it seemed that her natural vanity
+would overcome her discretion.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says I go to Doctor van Heerden's?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say so, because I have seen you. Surely you don't forget that I live
+opposite the amiable doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to discuss my business or his," she said, "and I don't
+care what you threaten me with or what you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I will do something more than threaten you," he said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> ominously, "you
+will not fool me, Miss Glaum, and the sooner you realize the fact the
+better. I am going all the way with you if you give me any trouble, and
+if you don't answer my questions. I might tell you that unless this
+interview is a very satisfactory one to me I shall not only arrest
+Doctor van Heerden to-night but I shall take you as an accomplice."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't, you can't." She almost screamed the words.</p>
+
+<p>All the sullen restraint fell away from her and she was electric in the
+violence of her protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Arrest him! That wonderful man! Arrest me? You dare not! You dare not!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall dare do lots of things unless you tell me what I want to know."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to know?" she demanded defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to know the most likely address at which your friend the doctor
+can be found&mdash;the fact is, Miss Glaum, the game is up&mdash;we know all about
+the Green Rust."</p>
+
+<p>She stepped back, her hand raised to her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"The&mdash;the Green Rust!" she gasped. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I have every reason to believe that Doctor van Heerden is
+engaged in a conspiracy against this State. He has disappeared, but is
+still in London. I want to take him quietly&mdash;without fuss."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were fixed on his. He saw doubt, rage, a hint of fear and
+finally a steady light of resolution shining. When she spoke her voice
+was calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. I will take you to the place," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She went out of the room and came back five minutes later with her hat
+and coat on.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long way," she began.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a taxi at the door."</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot go all the way by taxi. Tell the man to drive to Baker
+Street," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke no word during the journey, nor was Beale inclined for
+conversation. At Baker Street Station they stopped and the cab was
+dismissed. Together they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> walked in silence, turning from the main road,
+passing the Central Station and plunging into a labyrinth of streets
+which was foreign territory to the American.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that he had passed in one step from one of the best-class
+quarters of the town to one of the worst. One minute he was passing
+through a sedate square, lined with the houses of the well-to-do,
+another minute he was in a slum.</p>
+
+<p>"The place is at the end of this street," she said.</p>
+
+<p>They came to what seemed to be a stable-yard. There was a blank wall
+with one door and a pair of gates. The girl took a key from her bag,
+opened the small door and stepped in, and Beale followed.</p>
+
+<p>They were in a yard littered with casks. On two sides of the yard ran
+low-roofed buildings which had apparently been used as stables. She
+locked the door behind her, walked across the yard to the corner and
+opened another door.</p>
+
+<p>"There are fourteen steps down," she said, "have you a light of any
+kind?"</p>
+
+<p>He took his electric torch from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to me," she said, "I will lead the way."</p>
+
+<p>"What is this place?" he asked, after she had locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>"It used to be a wine merchant's," she said shortly, "we have the
+cellars."</p>
+
+<p>"We?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply. At the bottom of the steps was a short passage and
+another door which was opened, and apparently the same key fitted them
+all, or else as Beale suspected she carried a pass key.</p>
+
+<p>They walked through, and again she closed the door behind them.</p>
+
+<p>"Another?" he said, as her light flashed upon a steel door a dozen paces
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the last one," she said, and went on.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the light was extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>"Your lamp's gone wrong," he heard her say, "but I can find the lock."</p>
+
+<p>He heard a click, but did not see the door open and did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> not realize
+what had happened until he heard a click again. The light was suddenly
+flashed on him, level with his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't see me," said a mocking voice, "I'm looking at you through
+the little spy-hole. Did you see the spy-hole, clever Mr. Beale? And I
+am on the other side of the door." He heard her laugh. "Are you going to
+arrest the doctor to-night?" she mocked. "Are you going to discover the
+secret of the Green Rust&mdash;ah! That is what you want, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear little friend," said Beale smoothly, "you will be very sensible
+and open that door. You don't suppose that I came here alone. I was
+shadowed all the way."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie," she said coolly, "why did I dismiss the cab and make you
+walk? Oh, clever Mr. Beale!"</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled, though he was in no chuckling mood.</p>
+
+<p>"What a sense of humour!" he said admiringly, "now just listen to me!"</p>
+
+<p>He made one stride to the door, his revolver had flicked out of his
+hip-pocket, when he heard the snap of a shutter, and the barrel that he
+thrust between the bars met steel. Then came the grind of bolts and he
+pocketed his gun.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then he walked back to the other door, struck a match and examined it.
+It was sheathed with iron. He tapped the walls with his stick, but found
+nothing to encourage him. The floor was solidly flagged, the low roof of
+the passage was vaulted and cased with stone.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped in his search suddenly and listened. Above his head he heard
+a light patter of feet, and smiled. It was his boast that he never
+forgot a voice or a footfall.</p>
+
+<p>"That's my little friend on her way back, running like the deuce, to
+tell the doctor," he said. "I have something under an hour before the
+shooting starts!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT</h3>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden did not hurry his departure from his Staines house. He
+spent the morning following Oliva's marriage in town, transacting
+certain important business and making no attempt to conceal his comings
+and goings, though he knew that he was shadowed. Yet he was well aware
+that every hour that passed brought danger nearer. He judged (and
+rightly) that his peril was not to be found in the consequences to his
+detention of Oliva Cress well.</p>
+
+<p>"I may have a week's grace," he said to Milsom, "and in the space of a
+week I can do all that I want."</p>
+
+<p>He spent the evening superintending the dismantling of apparatus in the
+shed, and it was past ten o'clock on Tuesday before he finished.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until he was seated by Milsom's side in the big limousine and
+the car was running smoothly through Kingston that he made any further
+reference to the previous afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Beale content?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Milsom, dozing in the corner of the car, awoke with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Beale content with his prize&mdash;and his predicament?" asked van
+Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess he should be. That little job brings him a million. He
+shouldn't worry about anything further."</p>
+
+<p>But van Heerden shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you have things quite right, Milsom," he said. "Beale is
+a better man than I thought, and knows my mind a little too well. He was
+astounded when Homo claimed to be a priest&mdash;I never saw a man more
+stunned in my life. He intended the marriage as a bluff to keep me away
+from the girl. He analysed the situation exactly, for he knew I was
+after her money, and that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> as a woman had no attraction for me. He
+believed&mdash;and there he was justified&mdash;that if I could not marry her I
+had no interest in detaining her, and engaged Homo to follow him around
+with a special licence. He timed everything too well for my comfort."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom shifted round and peered anxiously at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?" he asked. "It was only by a fluke that he made it in
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't what I mean. It is the fact that he knew that every second
+was vital, that he guessed I was keen on a quick marriage and that to
+forestall me he carried his (as he thought) pseudo-clergyman with him so
+that he need not lose a minute: these are the disturbing factors."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see it," said Milsom, "the fellow's a crook, all these Yankee
+detectives are grafters. He saw a chance of a big rake off and took it,
+fifty-fifty of a million fortune is fine commission!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're wrong. I'd like to think as you do. Man! Can't you see that his
+every action proves that he knows all about the Green Rust?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Milsom sat up.</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;what makes you say that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's clear enough. He has already some idea of the scheme. He has been
+pumping old Heyler; he even secured a sample of the stuff&mdash;it was a
+faulty cultivation, but it might have been enough for him. He surmised
+that I had a special use for old Millinborn's money and why I was in a
+hurry to get it."</p>
+
+<p>The silence which followed lasted several minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Does anybody except Beale know? If you settled him...?"</p>
+
+<p>"We should have to finish him to-night" said van Heerden, "that is what
+I have been thinking about all day."</p>
+
+<p>Another silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why not?" asked Milsom, "it is all one to me. The stake is worth
+a little extra risk."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be done before he finds the Paddington place;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> that is the
+danger which haunts me." Van Heerden was uneasy, and he had lost the
+note of calm assurance which ordinarily characterized his speech. "There
+is sufficient evidence there to spoil everything."</p>
+
+<p>"There is that," breathed Milsom, "it was madness to go on. You have all
+the stuff you want, you could have closed down the factory a week ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I must have a margin of safety&mdash;besides, how could I do anything else?
+I was nearly broke and any sign of closing down would have brought my
+hungry workers to Krooman Mansions."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," agreed the other, "I've had to stall 'em off, but I
+didn't know that it was because you were broke. It seemed to me just a
+natural reluctance to part with good money."</p>
+
+<p>Further conversation was arrested by the sudden stoppage of the car. Van
+Heerden peered through the window ahead and caught a glimpse of a red
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all right," he said, "this must be Putney Common, and I told
+Gregory to meet me with any news."</p>
+
+<p>A man came into the rays of the head-lamp and passed to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," asked the doctor, "is there any trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the green lamp on the bonnet," said Gregory (Milsom no longer
+wondered how the man had recognized the car from the score of others
+which pass over the common), "there is no news of importance."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Beale?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the old man's hotel. He has been there all day."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he made any further visits to the police?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was at Scotland Yard this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"And the young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of the waiters at the hotel, a friend of mine, told me that she is
+much better. She has had two doctors."</p>
+
+<p>"And still lives?" said the cynical Milsom. "That makes four doctors she
+has seen in two days."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden leant out of the car window and lowered his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The Fr&auml;ulein Glaum, you saw her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I told her that she must not come to your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>laboratory again until
+you sent for her. She asked when you leave."</p>
+
+<p>"That she must not know, Gregory&mdash;please remember."</p>
+
+<p>He withdrew his head, tapped at the window and the car moved on.</p>
+
+<p>"There's another problem for you, van Heerden," said Milsom with a
+chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" demanded the other sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Hilda Glaum. I've only seen the girl twice or so, but she adores you.
+What are you going to do with her?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden lit a cigarette, and in the play of the flame Milsom saw him
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"She comes on after me," he said, "by which I mean that I have a place
+for her in my country, but not&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the sort of place she expects," finished Milsom bluntly. "You may
+have trouble there."</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's foolish," said Milsom, "the convict establishments of England
+are filled with men who said 'Bah' when they were warned against jealous
+women. If," he went on, "if you could eliminate jealousy from the human
+outfit, you'd have half the prison warders of England unemployed."</p>
+
+<p>"Hilda is a good girl," said the other complacently, "she is also a good
+German girl, and in Germany women know their place in the system. She
+will be satisfied with what I give her."</p>
+
+<p>"There aren't any women like that," said Milsom with decision, and the
+subject dropped.</p>
+
+<p>The car stopped near the Marble Arch to put down Milsom, and van Heerden
+continued his journey alone, reaching his apartments a little before
+midnight. As he stepped out of the car a man strolled across the street.
+It was Beale's watcher. Van Heerden looked round with a smile, realizing
+the significance of this nonchalant figure, and passed through the lobby
+and up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>He had left his lights full on for the benefit of watchers, and the
+hall-lamp glowed convincingly through the fanlight. Beale's flat was in
+darkness, and a slip of paper fastened to the door gave his address.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>The doctor let himself into his own rooms, closed the door, switched
+out the light and stepped into his bureau.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," he said angrily, "what are you doing here?&mdash;I told you not to
+come."</p>
+
+<p>The girl who was sitting at the table and who now rose to meet him was
+breathless, and he read trouble in her face. He could have read pride
+there, too, that she had so well served the man whom she idolized as a
+god.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got him, I've got him, Julius!"</p>
+
+<p>"Got him! Got whom?" he asked, with a frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Beale!" she said eagerly, "the great Beale!"</p>
+
+<p>She gurgled with hysterical laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to me, he was going to arrest me to-night, but I got him."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," he said firmly, "and try to be coherent, Hilda. Who came to
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beale. He came to my boarding-house and wanted to know where you had
+taken Oliva Cresswell. Have you taken her?" she asked earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to me full of arrogance and threats. He was going to have me
+arrested, Julius, because of those letters which I gave you. But I
+didn't worry about myself, Julius. It was all for you that I thought.
+The thought that you, my dear, great man, should be put in one of these
+horrible English prisons&mdash;oh, Julius!"</p>
+
+<p>She rose, her eyes filled with tears, but he stood over her, laid his
+hands on her shoulders and pressed her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, now. You must tell me everything. This is very serious. What
+happened then?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wanted me to take him to one of the places."</p>
+
+<p>"One of what places?" he asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. He only said that he knew that you had other houses&mdash;I
+don't even know that he said that, but that was the impression that he
+gave me, that he knew you were to be found somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And so I thought and I thought," said the girl, her hands clasped in
+front of her, her eyes looking up into his,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> "and I prayed God would
+give me some idea to help you. And then the scheme came to me, Julius. I
+said I would lead him to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You said you would lead him to me?" he said steadily, "and where did
+you lead him?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the factory in Paddington," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he stared at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, wait, wait!" she said, "oh, please don't blame me! I took him
+into the passage with the doors. I borrowed his light, and after we had
+passed and locked the second door I slipped through the third and
+slammed it in his face."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He is there! Caught! Oh, Julius, did I do well? Please don't be angry
+with me! I was so afraid for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you been here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not ten minutes, perhaps five minutes, I don't know. I have no
+knowledge of time. I came straight back to see you."</p>
+
+<p>He stood by the table, gnawing his finger, his head bowed in
+concentrated thought.</p>
+
+<p>"There, of all places!" he muttered; "there, of all places!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Julius, I did my best," she said tearfully.</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at her with a little sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you did your best. You're a woman and you haven't brains."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought!" he sneered. "Who told you you could think? You fool!
+Don't you know it was a bluff, that he could no more arrest me than I
+could arrest him? Don't you realize&mdash;did he know you were in the habit
+of coming here?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so," said van Heerden with a bitter laugh. "He knows you are
+in love with me and he played upon your fears. You poor little fool!
+Don't cry or I shall do something unpleasant. There, there. Help
+yourself to some wine, you'll find it in the tantalus."</p>
+
+<p>He strode up and down the room.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p><p>"There's nothing to be done but to settle accounts with Mr. Beale," he
+said grimly. "Do you think he was watched?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, no, Julius"&mdash;she checked her sobs&mdash;"I was so careful."</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a description of the journey and the precautions she had
+taken.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps you're not such a fool after all."</p>
+
+<p>He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a long-barrelled Browning
+pistol, withdrew the magazine from the butt, examined and replaced it,
+and slipped back the cover.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I must settle accounts with this gentleman, but I don't
+want to use this," he added thoughtfully, as he pushed up the
+safety-catch and dropped the weapon in his pocket; "we might be able to
+gas him. Anyway, you can do no more good or harm," he said cynically.</p>
+
+<p>She was speechless, her hands, clasped tightly at her breast, covered a
+damp ball of handkerchief, and her tear-stained face was upturned to
+his.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, dry your face." He stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
+"Perhaps what you have done is the best after all. Who knows? Anyway,"
+he said, speaking his thoughts aloud, "Beale knows about the Green Rust
+and it can't be very long before I have to go to earth, but only for a
+little time, my Hilda." He smiled, showing his white teeth, but it was
+not a pleasant smile, "only for a little time, and then," he threw up
+his arms, "we shall be rich beyond the dreams of Frankfurt."</p>
+
+<p>"You will succeed, I know you will succeed, Julius," she breathed, "if I
+could only help you! If you would only tell me what you are doing! What
+is the Green Rust? Is it some wonderful new explosive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dry your face and go home," he said shortly, "you will find a detective
+outside the door watching you, but I do not think he will follow you."</p>
+
+<p>He dismissed the girl and followed her after an interval of time,
+striding boldly past the shadow and gaining the cab-stand in Shaftesbury
+Avenue without, so far as he could see, being followed. But he dismissed
+the cab in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> the neighbourhood of Baker Street and continued his journey
+on foot. He opened the little door leading into the yard but did not
+follow the same direction as the girl had led Stanford Beale. It was
+through another door that he entered the vault, which at one time had
+been the innocent repository of bubbling life and was now the factory
+where men worked diligently for the destruction of their fellows.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GREEN RUST FACTORY</h3>
+
+<p>Stanford Beale spent a thoughtful three minutes in the darkness of the
+cellar passage to which Hilda Glaum had led him and then he began a
+careful search of his pockets. He carried a little silver cigar-lighter,
+which had fortunately been charged with petrol that afternoon, and this
+afforded him a beam of adequate means to take note of his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>The space between the two locked doors was ten feet, the width of the
+passage three, the height about seven feet. The roof, as he had already
+noted, was vaulted. Now he saw that along the centre ran a strip of
+beading. There had evidently been an electric light installation here,
+probably before the new owners took possession, for at intervals was a
+socket for an electric bulb. The new occupants had covered these and the
+rest of the wall with whitewash, and yet the beading and the electric
+fittings looked comparatively new. One wall, that on his left as he had
+come in, revealed nothing under his close inspection, but on the right
+wall, midway between the two doors, there had been a notice painted in
+white letters on a black background, and this showed faintly through the
+thick coating of distemper which had been applied. He damped a
+handkerchief with his tongue and rubbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> away some of the whitewash
+where the letters were least legible and read:</p>
+
+<table class="none" summary="notice">
+  <tr>
+    <td>AID</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>LTER.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>ULANCE &amp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>T AID.</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>This was evidently half an inscription which had been cut off exactly in
+the middle. To the left there was no sign of lettering. He puzzled the
+letters for a few moments before he came to an understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Air-raid shelter. Ambulance and first aid!" he read.</p>
+
+<p>So that explained the new electric fittings. It was one of those
+underground cellars which had been ferreted out by the Municipality or
+the Government for the shelter of the people in the neighbourhood during
+air-raids in the Great War. Evidently there was extensive accommodation
+here, since this was also an ambulance post. Faintly discernible beneath
+the letters was a painted white hand which pointed downward. What had
+happened to the other half of the inscription? Obviously it had been
+painted on the door leading into the first-aid room and as obviously
+that door had been removed and had been bricked up. In the light of this
+discovery he made a more careful inspection of the wall to the left. For
+the space of four feet the brickwork was new. He tapped it. It sounded
+hollow. Pressing his back against the opposite wall to give him leverage
+he put his foot against the new brickwork and pushed.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that the class of workmanship which was put into this kind of
+job was not of the best, that only one layer of brick was applied, and
+it was a mechanical fact that pressure applied to the centre of new work
+would produce a collapse.</p>
+
+<p>At the first push he felt the wall sag. Releasing his pressure it came
+back. This time he put both feet against the wall and bracing his
+shoulders he put every ounce of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> strength in his body into a mighty
+heave. The next second he was lying on his back. The greater part of the
+wall had collapsed. He was curious enough to examine the work he had
+demolished. It had evidently been done by amateurs, and the whitewash
+which had been thickly applied to the passage was explained.</p>
+
+<p>A current of fresh air came to meet him as he stepped gingerly across
+the debris. A flight of six stone steps led down to a small room
+containing a sink and a water supply, two camp beds which had evidently
+been part of the ambulance equipment and which the new owners had not
+thought necessary to remove, and a broken chair. The room was still
+littered with the paraphernalia of first-aid. He found odd ends of
+bandages, empty medicine bottles and a broken glass measure on the shelf
+above the sink.</p>
+
+<p>What interested him more was a door which he had not dared to hope he
+would find. It was bolted on his side, and when he had slid this back he
+discovered to his relief that it was not locked. He opened it carefully,
+first extinguishing his light. Beyond the door was darkness and he
+snapped back the light again. The room led to another, likewise empty.
+There were a number of shelves, a few old wine-bins, a score of empty
+bottles, but nothing else. At the far corner was yet another door, also
+bolted on the inside. Evidently van Heerden did not intend this part of
+the vault to be used.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the lock and found it was broken. He must be approaching
+the main workroom in this new factory, and it was necessary to proceed
+with caution. He took out his revolver, spun the cylinder and thrust it
+under his waistcoat, the butt ready to his hand. The drawing of the
+bolts was a long business. He could not afford to risk detection at this
+hour, and could only move them by a fraction of an inch at a time.
+Presently his work was done and he pulled the door cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly there appeared between door and jamb a bright green line of
+light. He dare not move it any farther, for he heard now the shuffle of
+feet, and occasionally the sound of hollow voices, muffled and
+indistinguishable. In that light the opening of the door would be seen,
+perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> by a dozen pair of eyes. For all he knew every man in that room
+might be facing his way. He had expected to hear the noise of machinery,
+but beyond the strangled voices, occasionally the click of glass against
+glass and the shuff-shuff-shuff of slippered feet crossing the floor, he
+heard nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He pulled the door another quarter of an inch and glued his eye to the
+crack. At this angle he could only see one of the walls of the big vault
+and the end of a long vapour-lamp which stood in one of the cornices and
+which supplied the ghastly light. But presently he saw something which
+filled him with hope. Against the wall was a high shadow which even the
+overhead lamp did not wholly neutralize. It was an irregular shadow such
+as a stack of boxes might make, and it occurred to him that perhaps
+beyond his range of vision there was a barricade of empty cases which
+hid the door from the rest of the room.</p>
+
+<p>He spent nearly three-quarters of an hour taking a bearing based upon
+the problematical position of the lights, the height and density of the
+box screen and then boldly and rapidly opened the door, stepped through
+and closed it behind him. His calculations had been accurate. He found
+himself in a room, the extent of which he could only conjecture. What,
+however, interested him mostly was the accuracy of his calculation that
+the door was hidden. An "L"-shaped stack of crates was piled within two
+feet of the ceiling, and formed a little lobby to anybody entering the
+vault the way Beale had come. They were stacked neatly and methodically,
+and with the exception of two larger packing-cases which formed the
+"corner stone" the barrier was made of a large number of small boxes
+about ten inches square.</p>
+
+<p>There was a small step-ladder, evidently used by the person whose
+business it was to keep this stack in order. Beale lifted it
+noiselessly, planted it against the corner and mounted cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>He saw a large, broad chamber, its groined roof supported by six squat
+stone pillars. Light came not only from mercurial lamps affixed to the
+ceiling, but from others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> suspended above the three rows of benches
+which ran the length of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Mercurial lamps do not give a green light, as he knew, but a violet
+light, and the green effect was produced by shades of something which
+Beale thought was yellow silk, but which he afterwards discovered was
+tinted mica.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals along the benches sat white-clad figures, their faces
+hidden behind rubber masks, their hands covered with gloves. In front of
+each man was a small microscope under a glass shade, a pair of balances
+and a rack filled with shallow porcelain trays. Evidently the work on
+which they were engaged did not endanger their eyesight, for the
+eye-pieces in the masks were innocent of protective covering, a
+circumstance which added to the hideous animal-like appearance of the
+men. They all looked alike in their uniform garb, but one figure alone
+Beale recognized. There was no mistaking the stumpy form and the big
+head of the Herr Professor, whose appearance in Oliva Cresswell's room
+had so terrified that young lady.</p>
+
+<p>He had expected to see him, for he knew that this old German,
+poverty-stricken and ill-favoured, had been roped in by van Heerden, and
+Beale, who pitied the old man, had been engaged for a fortnight in
+trying to worm from the ex-professor of chemistry at the University of
+Heidelberg the location of van Heerden's secret laboratory. His efforts
+had been unsuccessful. There was a streak of loyalty in the old man,
+which had excited an irritable admiration in the detective but had
+produced nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>Beale's eyes followed the benches and took in every detail. Some of the
+men were evidently engaged in tests, and remained all the time with
+their eyes glued to their microscopes. Others were looking into their
+porcelain trays and stirring the contents with glass rods, now and again
+transferring something to a glass slide which was placed on the
+microscope and earnestly examined.</p>
+
+<p>Beale was conscious of a faint musty odour permeating the air, an
+indescribable earthy smell with a tang to it which made the delicate
+membrane of the nostrils smart and ache. He tied his handkerchief over
+his nose and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> mouth before he took another peep. Only part of the room
+was visible from his post of observation. What was going on immediately
+beneath the far side of the screen he could only conjecture. But he saw
+enough to convince him that this was the principal factory, from whence
+van Heerden was distilling the poison with which he planned humanity's
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the workers were filling and sealing small test-tubes with the
+contents of dishes. These tubes were extraordinarily delicate of
+structure, and Beale saw at least three crumble and shiver in the hands
+of the fillers.</p>
+
+<p>Every bench held a hundred or so of these tubes and a covered gas-jet
+for heating the wax. The work went on methodically, with very little
+conversation between the masked figures (he saw that the masks covered
+the heads of the chemists so that not a vestige of hair showed), and
+only occasionally did one of them leave his seat and disappear through a
+door at the far end of the room, which apparently led to a canteen.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the fumes against which they were protected were not virulent,
+for some of the men stripped their masks as soon as they left their
+benches.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour he watched, and in the course of that time saw the
+process of filling the small boxes which formed his barrier and
+hiding-place with the sealed tubes. He observed the care with which the
+fragile tubes were placed in their beds of cotton wool, and had a
+glimpse of the lined interior of one of the boxes. He was on the point
+of lifting down a box to make a more thorough examination when he heard
+a quavering voice beneath him.</p>
+
+<p>"What you do here&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Under the step-ladder was one of the workers who had slipped noiselessly
+round the corner of the pile and now stood, grotesque and menacing, his
+uncovered eyes glowering at the intruder, the black barrel of his
+Browning pistol covering the detective's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't shoot, colonel," said Beale softly. "I'll come down."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH</h3>
+
+<p>After all, it was for the best&mdash;van Heerden could almost see the hand of
+Providence in this deliverance of his enemy into his power. There must
+be a settlement with Beale, that play-acting drunkard, who had so
+deceived him at first.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden could admire the ingenuity of his enemy and could kill
+him. He was a man whose mental poise permitted the paradox of detached
+attachments. At first he had regarded Stanford Beale as a smart police
+officer, the sort of man whom Pinkerton and Burns turn out by the score.
+Shrewd, assertive, indefatigable, such men piece together the scattered
+mosaics of humdrum crimes, and by their mechanical patience produce for
+the satisfaction of courts sufficient of the piece to reveal the design.
+They figure in divorce suits, in financial swindles and occasionally in
+more serious cases.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden knew instinctively their limitations and had too hastily
+placed Beale in a lower category than he deserved. Van Heerden came to
+his workroom by way of the buffet which he had established for the use
+of his employees. As he shut the steel door behind him he saw Milsom
+standing at the rough wooden sideboard which served as bar and table for
+the workers.</p>
+
+<p>"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Milsom, and then quickly, as he
+read the other's face: "Anything wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"If the fact that the cleverest policeman in America or England is at
+present on the premises can be so described, then everything is wrong,"
+said van Heerden, and helped himself to a drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;in the laboratory?" demanded Milsom, fear in his eyes. "What do
+you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," said the other, and gave the story as he had heard it
+from Hilda Glaum.</p>
+
+<p>"He's in the old passage, eh?" said Milsom, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>thoughtfully, "well there's
+no reason why he should get out&mdash;alive."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he followed&mdash;you saw nobody outside?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have nothing to fear on that score. He's working on his own."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we going to do with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gas him," said van Heerden, "he is certain to have a gun."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until the men have gone. I let them go at three&mdash;a few at a time,
+and it wants half an hour to that. He can wait. He's safe where he is.
+Why didn't Hilda tell me? I never even saw her."</p>
+
+<p>"She went straight up from the old passage&mdash;through the men's door&mdash;she
+didn't trust you probably."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom smiled wryly. Though he controlled these works and knew half the
+doctor's secrets, he suspected that the quantity of van Heerden's trust
+was not greatly in excess of his girl's.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll wait," he said again, "there's no hurry and, anyway, I want to
+see you about old man Heyler."</p>
+
+<p>"Von Heyler? I thought you were rid of him?" said van Heerden in
+surprise, "that is the old fool that Beale has been after. He has been
+trying to suck him dry, and has had two interviews with him. I told you
+to send him to Deans Folly. Bridgers would have taken care of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Bridgers can look after nothing," said Milsom.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes roved along the benches and stopped at a worker at the farther
+end of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"He's quiet to-night," he said, "that fellow is too full of himself for
+my liking. Earlier in the evening before I arrived he pulled a gun on
+Schultz. He's too full of gunplay that fellow&mdash;excuse the idiom, but I
+was in the same tailor's shop at Portland Gaol as Ned Garrand, the
+Yankee bank-smasher."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden made a gesture of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"About old Heyler," Milsom went on, "I know you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> think he's dangerous,
+so I've kept him here. There's a room where he can sleep, and he can
+take all the exercise he wants at night. But the old fool is
+restless&mdash;he's been asking me what is the object of his work."</p>
+
+<p>"He's difficult. Twice he has nearly betrayed me. As I told you in the
+car, I gave him some experimental work to do and he brought the result
+to me&mdash;that was the sample which fell into Beale's hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Beale is certainly a danger," said Milsom thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden made a move toward the laboratory, but Milsom's big hand
+detained him.</p>
+
+<p>"One minute, van Heerden," he said, "whilst you're here you'd better
+decide&mdash;when do we start dismantling? I've got to find some excuse to
+send these fellows away."</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden thought.</p>
+
+<p>"In two days," he said, "that will give you time to clear. You can send
+the men&mdash;well, send them to Scotland, some out-of-the-way place where
+news doesn't travel. Tell them we're opening a new factory, and put them
+up at the local hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom inclined his head.</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds easy," he said, "I could take charge of them until the time
+came to skip. One can get a boat at Greenock."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall miss you," said van Heerden frankly, "you were necessary to me,
+Milsom. You're the driving force I wanted, and the only man of my class
+and calibre I can ever expect to meet, one who would go into this
+business with me."</p>
+
+<p>They had reached the big vault and van Heerden stood regarding the scene
+of mental activity with something approaching complacency.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a billion in process of creation," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I could never think in more than six figures," said Milsom, "and it is
+only under your cheering influence that I can stretch to seven. I am
+going to live in the Argentine, van Heerden. A house on a hill&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The other shivered, but Milsom went on.</p>
+
+<p>"A gorgeous palace of a house, alive with servants.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> A string band, a
+perfectly equipped laboratory where I can indulge my passion for
+research, a high-powered auto, wine of the rarest&mdash;ah!"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden looked at his companion curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"That appeals to you, does it? For me, the control of finance. Endless
+schemes of fortune; endless smashings of rivals, railways, ships, great
+industries juggled and shuffled&mdash;that is the life I plan."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" said the other laconically.</p>
+
+<p>They walked to a bench and the worker looked up and took off his mask.</p>
+
+<p>He was an old man, and grinned toothlessly at van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Signor Doctor," he said in Italian. "Science is long and
+life is short, signor."</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled and, resuming his mask, returned to his work, ignoring the
+two men as though they had no existence.</p>
+
+<p>"A little mad, old Castelli," said Milsom, "that's his one little
+piece&mdash;what crooked thing has he done?"</p>
+
+<p>"None that I know," said the other carelessly; "he lost his wife and two
+daughters in the Messina earthquake. I picked him up cheap. He's a
+useful chemist."</p>
+
+<p>They walked from bench to bench, but van Heerden's eyes continuously
+strayed to the door, behind which he pictured a caged Stanford Beale,
+awaiting his doom. The men were beginning to depart now. One by one they
+covered their instruments and their trays, slipped off their masks and
+overalls and disappeared through the door, upon which van Heerden's gaze
+was so often fixed. Their exit, however, would not take them near
+Beale's prison. A few paces along the corridor was another passage
+leading to the yard above, and it was by this way that Hilda Glaum had
+sped to the doctor's room.</p>
+
+<p>Presently all were gone save one industrious worker, who sat peering
+through the eye-piece of his microscope, immovable.</p>
+
+<p>"That's our friend Bridgers," said Milsom, "he's all lit up with the
+alkaloid of <i>Enythroxylon Coca</i>&mdash;&mdash; Well, Bridgers, nearly finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" grunted the man without turning.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p><p>Milsom shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"We must let him finish what he's doing. He is quite oblivious to the
+presence of anybody when he has these fits of industry. By the way, the
+passing of our dear enemy"&mdash;he jerked his head to the passage
+door&mdash;"will make no change in your plans?"</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have no great anxiety to marry the widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And she isn't a widow yet."</p>
+
+<p>It was not Milsom who spoke, but the man at the bench, the industrious
+worker whose eye was still at the microscope.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your comments to yourself," said van Heerden angrily, "finish your
+work and get out."</p>
+
+<p>"I've finished."</p>
+
+<p>The worker rose slowly and loosening the tapes of his mask pulled it
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Beale," he said calmly, "I think we've met before. Don't
+move, Milsom, unless you want to save living-expenses&mdash;I'm a fairly
+quick shot when I'm annoyed."</p>
+
+<p>Stanford Beale pushed back the microscope and seated himself on the edge
+of the bench.</p>
+
+<p>"You addressed me as Bridgers," he said, "you will find Mr. Bridgers in
+a room behind that stack of boxes. The fact is he surprised me spying
+and was all for shooting me up, but I induced him to come into my
+private office, so to speak, and the rest was easy&mdash;he dopes, doesn't
+he? He hadn't the strength of a rat. However, that is all beside the
+point; Dr. van Heerden, what have you to say against my arresting you
+out of hand on a conspiracy charge?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden smiled contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many things I can say," he said. "In the first place, you
+have no authority to arrest anybody. You're not a police officer but
+only an American amateur."</p>
+
+<p>"American, yes; but amateur, no," said Beale gently. "As to the
+authority, why I guess I can arrest you first and get the authority
+after."</p>
+
+<p>"On what charge?" demanded Milsom, "there is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>nothing secret about this
+place, except Doctor van Heerden's association with it&mdash;a professional
+man is debarred from mixing in commercial affairs. Is it a crime to run
+a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He looked to van Heerden.</p>
+
+<p>"A germicide factory," said van Heerden promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I know the character of this laboratory?" asked Beale quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Carry that kind of story to the police and see what steps they will
+take," said van Heerden scornfully. "My dear Mr. Beale, as I have told
+you once before, you have been reading too much exciting detective
+fiction."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely," he said, "but anyhow the little story that enthralls me
+just now is called the Green Terror, and I'm looking to you to supply a
+few of the missing pages. And I think you'll do it."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was lighting a cigarette, and he looked at the other over the
+flaring match with a gleam of malicious amusement in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Your romantic fancies would exasperate me, but for your evident
+sincerity. Having stolen my bride you seem anxious to steal my
+reputation," he said mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Beale, slipping off the bench and standing, hands on hips,
+before the doctor, "would take a bit of finding. I tell you, van
+Heerden, that I'm going to call your bluff. I shall place this factory
+in the hands of the police, and I am going to call in the greatest
+scientists in England, France and America, to prove the charge I shall
+make against you on the strength of this!"</p>
+
+<p>He held up between his forefinger and thumb a crystal tube, filled to
+its seal with something that looked like green sawdust.</p>
+
+<p>"The world, the sceptical world, shall know the hell you are preparing
+for them." Stanford Beale's voice trembled with passion and his face was
+dark with the thought of a crime so monstrous that even the outrageous
+treatment of a woman who was more to him than all the world was for the
+moment obliterated from his mind in the contemplation of the danger
+which threatened humanity.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that the police and even the government of this country will
+dismiss my charge as being too fantastic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> for belief. You shall have the
+satisfaction of knowing that you are right. They think I am mad&mdash;but I
+will convince them! In this tube lies the destruction of all your
+fondest dreams, van Heerden. To realize those dreams you have murdered
+two men. For these you killed John Millinborn and the man Pr&eacute;deaux. But
+you shall not&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bang!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The explosion roared thunderously in the confined space of the vault.
+Beale felt the wind of the bullet and turned, pistol upraised.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SECRET OF THE GREEN RUST</h3>
+
+<p>A dishevelled figure stood by the boxes, revolver in hand&mdash;it was
+Bridgers, the man he had left strapped and bound in the
+"ambulance-room," and Beale cursed the folly which had induced him to
+leave the revolver behind.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll fix you&mdash;you brute!" screamed Bridgers, "get away from him&mdash;ah!"</p>
+
+<p>Beale's hand flew up, a pencil of flame quivered and again the vault
+trembled to the deafening report.</p>
+
+<p>But Bridgers had dropped to cover. Again he shot, this time with
+unexpected effect. The bullet struck the fuse-box on the opposite wall
+and all the lights went out.</p>
+
+<p>Beale was still holding the glass tube, and this Milsom had seen. Quick
+as thought he hurled himself upon the detective, his big, powerful hands
+gripped the other's wrist and wrenched it round.</p>
+
+<p>Beale set his teeth and man&oelig;uvred for a lock grip, but he was badly
+placed, pressed as he was against the edge of the bench. He felt van
+Heerden's fingers clawing at his hand and the tube was torn away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p><p>Then somebody pulled the revolver from the other hand and there was a
+scamper of feet. He groped his way through the blackness and ran into
+the pile of boxes. A bullet whizzed past him from the half-crazy
+Bridgers, but that was a risk he had to take. He heard the squeak of an
+opening door and stumbled blindly in its direction. Presently he found
+it. He had watched the other men go out and discovered the steps&mdash;two
+minutes later he was in the street.</p>
+
+<p>There was no sign of either of the two men. He found a policeman after
+he had walked half a mile, but that intelligent officer could not leave
+his beat and advised him to go to the police station. It was an
+excellent suggestion, for although the sergeant on duty was wholly
+unresponsive there was a telephone, and at the end of the telephone in
+his little Haymarket flat, a Superintendent McNorton, the mention of
+whose very name galvanized the police office to activity.</p>
+
+<p>"I have found the factory I've been looking for, McNorton," said Beale.
+"I'll explain the whole thing to you in the morning. What I want now is
+a search made of the premises."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't do that without a magistrate's warrant," said McNorton's
+voice, "but what we can do is to guard the premises until the warrant is
+obtained. Ask the station sergeant to speak on the 'phone&mdash;by the way,
+how is Miss Cresswell, better, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Much better," said the young man shortly.</p>
+
+<p>It was unbelievable that she could ever fill his heart with the ache
+which came at the mention of her name.</p>
+
+<p>He made way for the station sergeant and later accompanied four men back
+to the laboratory. They found all the doors closed. Beale scaled the
+wall but failed to find a way in. He rejoined the sergeant on the other
+side of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the name of this street?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Playbury Street, sir&mdash;this used to be Henderson's Wine Vaults in my
+younger days."</p>
+
+<p>Beale jotted down the address and finding a taxi drove back to the
+police station, wearied and sick at heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p><p>He arrived in time to be a witness to a curious scene. In the centre of
+the charge-room and facing the sergeant's desk was a man of middle age,
+shabbily dressed, but bearing the indefinable air of one who had seen
+better days. The grey hair was carefully brushed from the familiar face
+and gave him that venerable appearance which pale eyes and a pair of
+thin straight lips (curled now in an amused smile) did their best to
+discount.</p>
+
+<p>By his side stood his captor, a station detective, a bored and apathetic
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems," the prisoner was saying, as Stanford Beale came noiselessly
+into the room, "it seems that under this detestable system of police
+espionage, a fellow may not even take a walk in the cool of the
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was that of an educated man, his drawling address spoke of his
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Now look here, Parson," said the station sergeant, in that friendly
+tone which the police adopt when dealing with their pet criminals, "you
+know as well as I do that under the Prevention of Crimes Act you, an old
+lag, are liable to be arrested if you are seen in any suspicious
+circumstances&mdash;you oughtn't to be wandering about the streets in the
+middle of the night, and if you do, why you mustn't kick because you're
+pinched&mdash;anything found on him, Smith?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sergeant&mdash;he was just mouching round, so I pulled him in."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you living now, Parson?"</p>
+
+<p>The man with extravagant care searched his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"I have inadvertently left my card-case with my coiner's outfit," he
+said gravely, "but a wire addressed to the Doss House, Mine Street,
+Paddington, will find me&mdash;but I don't think I should try. At this moment
+I enjoy the protection of the law. In four days' time I shall be on the
+ocean&mdash;why, Mr. Beale?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Parson&mdash;I thought you had sailed to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"The first-class berths are all taken and I will not travel to Australia
+with the common herd."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the astonished sergeant.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p><p>"Can I go&mdash;Mr. Beale will vouch for me?"</p>
+
+<p>As he left the charge-room he beckoned the detective, and when they were
+together in the street Beale found that all the Parson's flippancy had
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry I got you into that scrape," he said seriously. "I ought to
+have been unfrocked, but I was sentenced for my first crime under an
+assumed name. I was not attached to any church at the time and my
+identity has never been discovered. Mr. Beale," he went on with a
+quizzical smile, "I have yet to commit my ideal crime&mdash;the murder of a
+bishop who allows a curate to marry a wife on sixty pounds a year." His
+face darkened, and Beale found himself wondering at the contents of the
+tragic years behind the man. Where was the wife...?</p>
+
+<p>"But my private grievances against the world will not interest you,"
+Parson Homo resumed, "I only called you out to&mdash;well, to ask your
+pardon."</p>
+
+<p>"It was my own fault, Homo," said Beale quietly, and held out his hand.
+"Good luck&mdash;there may be a life for you in the new land."</p>
+
+<p>He stood till the figure passed out of sight, then turned wearily toward
+his own rooms. He went to his room and lay down on his bed fully
+dressed. He was aroused from a troubled sleep by the jangle of the
+'phone. It was McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"Come down to Scotland House and see the Assistant-Commissioner," he
+said, "he is very anxious to hear more about this factory. He tells me
+that you have already given him an outline of the plot."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I'll give you details&mdash;I'll be with you in half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>He had a bath and changed his clothes, and breakfastless, for the woman
+who waited on him and kept his flat and who evidently thought his
+absence was likely to be a long one, had not arrived. He drove to the
+grim grey building on the Thames Embankment.</p>
+
+<p>Assistant-Commissioner O'Donnel, a white-haired police veteran, was
+waiting for him, and McNorton was in the office.</p>
+
+<p>"You look fagged," said the commissioner, "take that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> chair&mdash;and you
+look hungry, too. Have you breakfasted?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Get him something, McNorton&mdash;ring that bell. Don't protest, my good
+fellow&mdash;I've had exactly the same kind of nights as you've had, and I
+know that it is grub that counts more than sleep."</p>
+
+<p>He gave an order to an attendant and not until twenty minutes later,
+when Beale had finished a surprisingly good meal in the superintendent's
+room, did the commissioner allow the story to be told.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm ready," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll begin at the beginning," said Stanford Beale. "I was a member of
+the United States Secret Service until after the war when, at the
+request of Mr. Kitson, who is known to you, I came to Europe to devote
+all my time to watching Miss Cresswell and Doctor van Heerden. All that
+you know.</p>
+
+<p>"One day when searching the doctor's rooms in his absence, my object
+being to discover some evidence in relation to the Millinborn murder, I
+found this."</p>
+
+<p>He took a newspaper cutting from his pocket-book and laid it on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"It is from <i>El Impartial</i>, a Spanish newspaper, and I will translate it
+for you.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'Thanks to the discretion and eminent genius of Dr. Alphonso
+Romanos, the Chief Medical Officer of Vigo, the farmers of the
+district have been spared a catastrophe much lamentable' (I am
+translating literally). 'On Monday last, Se&ntilde;or Don Marin Fernardey,
+of La Linea, discovered one of his fields of corn had died in the
+night and was already in a condition of rot. In alarm, he notified
+the Chief of Medicines at Vigo, and Dr. Alphonso Romanos, with that
+zeal and alacrity which has marked his acts, was quickly on the
+spot, accompanied by a foreign scientist. Happily the learned and
+gentle doctor is a bacteriologist superb. An examination of the
+dead corn, which already emitted unpleasant odours,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> revealed the
+presence of a new disease, the verde orin (green rust). By his
+orders the field was burnt. Fortunately, the area was small and
+dissociated from the other fields of Se&ntilde;or Fernardey by wide
+<i>zanzas</i>. With the exception of two small pieces of the infected
+corn, carried away by Dr. Romanos and the foreign medical-cavalier,
+the pest was incinerated.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"The Foreign Medical-Cavalier," said Beale, "was Doctor van Heerden. The
+date was 1915, when the doctor was taking his summer holiday, and I have
+had no difficulty in tracing him. I sent one of my men to Vigo to
+interview Doctor Romanos, who remembers the circumstances perfectly. He
+himself had thought it wisest to destroy the germ after carefully noting
+their characteristics, and he expressed the anxious hope that his whilom
+friend, van Heerden, had done the same. Van Heerden, of course, did
+nothing of the sort. He has been assiduously cultivating the germs in
+his laboratory. So far as I can ascertain from Professor Heyler, an old
+German who was in van Heerden's service and who seems a fairly honest
+man, the doctor nearly lost the culture, and it was only by sending out
+small quantities to various seedy scientists and getting them to
+experiment in the cultivation of the germ under various conditions that
+he found the medium in which they best flourish. It is, I believe,
+fermented rye-flour, but I am not quite sure."</p>
+
+<p>"To what purpose do you suggest van Heerden will put his cultivations?"
+asked the commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming to that. In the course of my inquiries and searchings I
+found that he was collecting very accurate data concerning the great
+wheatfields of the world. From the particulars he was preparing I formed
+the idea that he intended, and intends, sending an army of agents all
+over the world who, at a given signal, will release the germs in the
+growing wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely a few germs sprinkled on a great wheatfield such as you find
+in America would do no more than local damage?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p><p>"Mr. O'Donnel," he said soberly, "if I broke a tube of that stuff in
+the corner of a ten-thousand-acre field the whole field would be rotten
+in twenty-four hours! It spreads from stalk to stalk with a rapidity
+that is amazing. One germ multiplies itself in a living cornfield a
+billion times in twelve hours. It would not only be possible, but
+certain that twenty of van Heerden's agents in America could destroy the
+harvests of the United States in a week."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should he do this&mdash;he is a German, you say&mdash;and Germans do not
+engage in frightfulness unless they see a dividend at the end of it."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a dividend&mdash;a dividend of millions at the end of it," said
+Beale, graver, "that much I know. I cannot tell you any more yet. But I
+can say this: that up till yesterday van Heerden was carrying on the
+work without the aid of his Government. That is no longer the case.
+There is now a big syndicate in existence to finance him, and the
+principal shareholder is the German Government. He has already spent
+thousands, money he has borrowed and money he has stolen. As a side-line
+and sheerly to secure her money he carried off John Millinborn's heiress
+with the object of forcing her into a marriage."</p>
+
+<p>The commissioner chewed the end of his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a State matter and one on which I must consult the Home Office.
+You tell me that the Foreign Office believe your story&mdash;of course I do,
+too," he added quickly, "though it sounds wildly improbable. Wait here."</p>
+
+<p>He took up his hat and went out.</p>
+
+<p>"It is going to be a difficult business to convict van Heerden," said
+the superintendent when his chief had gone, "you see, in the English
+courts, motive must be proved to convict before a jury, and there seems
+no motive except revenge. A jury would take a lot of convincing that a
+man spent thousands of pounds to avenge a wrong done to his country."</p>
+
+<p>Beale had no answer to this. At the back of his mind he had a dim idea
+of the sheer money value of the scheme, but he needed other evidence
+than he possessed. The commissioner returned soon after.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p><p>"I have been on the 'phone to the Under-Secretary, and we will take
+action against van Heerden on the evidence the factory offers. I'll put
+you in charge of the case, McNorton, you have the search-warrant
+already? Good!"</p>
+
+<p>He shook hands with Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"You will make a European name over this, Mr. Beale," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Europe will have nothing more to talk about," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>They passed back to McNorton's office.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come right along," said the superintendent. He was taking his hat
+from a peg when he saw a closed envelope lying on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"From the local police station," he said. "How long has this been here?"</p>
+
+<p>His clerk shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you, sir&mdash;it has been there since I came in."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm&mdash;I must have overlooked it. Perhaps it is news from your factory."</p>
+
+<p>He tore it open, scanned the contents and swore.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes your evidence, Beale," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Beale quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"The factory was burned to the ground in the early hours of the
+morning," he said. "The fire started in the old wine vault and the whole
+building has collapsed."</p>
+
+<p>The detective stared out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Can we arrest van Heerden on the evidence of Professor Heyler?"</p>
+
+<p>For answer McNorton handed him the letter. It ran:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"From Inspector-in-charge, S. Paddington, to Supt. McNorton.
+Factory in Playbury St. under P.O. (Police Observation) completely
+destroyed by fire, which broke out in basement at 5.20 this
+morning. One body found, believed to be a man named Heyler."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD</h3>
+
+<p>There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a
+menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of
+pillows, gives to the golden sunlight which filters through a billion
+panes the very hues and character of jaundice. It is the menace of
+factory and workshop, harsh prisons which shut men and women from the
+green fields and the pleasant by-ways; the menace of new
+responsibilities to be faced and new difficulties to be overcome. Into
+the space of Monday morning drain the dregs of last week's commitments
+to gather into stagnant pools upon the desks and benches of toiling and
+scheming humanity. It is the end of the holiday, the foot of the new
+hill whose crest is Saturday night and whose most pleasant outlook is
+the Sunday to come.</p>
+
+<p>Men go to their work reluctant and resentful and reach out for the
+support which the lunch-hour brings. One o'clock in London is about six
+o'clock in Chicago. Therefore the significance of shoals of cablegrams
+which lay on the desks of certain brokers was not wholly apparent until
+late in the evening, and was not thoroughly understood until late on
+Tuesday morning, when to other and greater shoals of cables came the
+terse price-lists from the Board of Trade in Chicago, and on top of all
+the wirelessed Press accounts for the sensational jump in wheat.</p>
+
+<p>"Wheat soaring," said one headline. "Frantic scenes in the Pit," said
+another. "Wheat reaches famine price," blared a third.</p>
+
+<p>Beale passing through to Whitehall heard the shrill call of the newsboys
+and caught the word "wheat." He snatched a paper from the hands of a boy
+and read.</p>
+
+<p>Every corn-market in the Northern Hemisphere was in a condition of
+chaos. Prices were jumping to a figure beyond any which the most
+stringent days of the war had produced.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p><p>He slipped into a telephone booth, gave a Treasury number and McNorton
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the papers?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I've heard. You mean about the wheat boom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;the game has started."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you&mdash;wait for me, I'll join you."</p>
+
+<p>Three minutes later McNorton appeared from the Whitehall end of Scotland
+Yard. Beale hailed a cab and they drove to the hotel together.</p>
+
+<p>"Warrants have been issued for van Heerden and Milsom and the girl
+Glaum," he said. "I expect we shall find the nest empty, but I have sent
+men to all the railway stations&mdash;do you think we've moved too late?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything depends on the system that van Heerden has adopted," replied
+Beale, "he is the sort of man who would keep everything in his own
+hands. If he has done that, and we catch him, we may prevent a world
+catastrophe."</p>
+
+<p>At the hotel they found Kitson waiting in the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he asked, "I gather that you've lost van Heerden, but if the
+newspapers mean anything, his hand is down on the table. Everybody is
+crazy here," he said, as he led the way to the elevator, "I've just been
+speaking to the Under-Minister for Agriculture&mdash;all Europe is scared.
+Now what is the story?" he asked, when they were in his room.</p>
+
+<p>He listened attentively and did not interrupt until Stanford Beale had
+finished.</p>
+
+<p>"That's big enough," he said. "I owe you an apology&mdash;much as I was
+interested in Miss Cresswell, I realize that her fate was as nothing
+beside the greater issue."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?" asked McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"The Wheat Panic? God knows. It may mean bread at a guinea a pound&mdash;it
+is too early to judge."</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened unceremoniously and a man strode in. McNorton was
+the first to recognize the intruder and rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to interrupt you," said Lord Sevington<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>&mdash;it was the Foreign
+Secretary of Great Britain himself. "Well, Beale, the fantastic story
+you told me seems in a fair way to being realized."</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. Kitson," introduced Stanford, and the grey-haired statesman
+bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent for you, but decided I couldn't wait&mdash;so I came myself. Ah,
+McNorton, what are the chances of catching van Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>"No man has ever escaped from this country once his identity was
+established," said the police chief hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"If we had taken Beale's advice we should have the gentleman under lock
+and key," said the Foreign Minister, shaking his head. "You probably
+know that Mr. Beale has been in communication with the Foreign Office
+for some time?" he said, addressing Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know," admitted the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"We thought it was one of those brilliant stories which the American
+newspaper reporter loves," smiled the minister.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite get the commercial end of it," said Kitson. "How does van
+Heerden benefit by destroying the crops of the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't benefit, because the crops won't be destroyed," said the
+minister. "The South Russian crops are all right, the German crops are
+intact&mdash;but are practically all mortgaged to the German Government."</p>
+
+<p>"The Government?"</p>
+
+<p>"This morning the German Government have made two announcements. The
+first is the commandeering of all the standing crops, and at the same
+time the taking over of all options on the sale of wheat. Great
+granaries are being established all over Germany. The old Zeppelin
+sheds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Great heavens!" cried Kitson, and stared at Stanford Beale. "That was
+the reason they took over the sheds?"</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty good reason, too," said Beale, "storage is everything in a
+crisis like this. What is the second announcement, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"They prohibit the export of grain," said Lord <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>Sevington, "the whole of
+Germany is to be rationed for a year, bread is to be supplied by the
+Government free of all cost to the people; in this way Germany handles
+the surpluses for us to buy."</p>
+
+<p>"What will she charge?"</p>
+
+<p>"What she wishes. If van Heerden's scheme goes through, if throughout
+the world the crops are destroyed and only that which lies under
+Germany's hand is spared, what must we pay? Every penny we have taken
+from Germany; every cent of her war costs must be returned to her in
+exchange for wheat."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why impossible? There is no limit to the price of rarities. What is
+rarer than gold is more costly than gold. You who are in the room are
+the only people in the world who know the secret of the Green Rust, and
+I can speak frankly to you. I tell you that we must either buy from
+Germany or make war on Germany, and the latter course is impossible, and
+if it were possible would give us no certainty of relief. We shall have
+to pay, Britain, France, America, Italy&mdash;we shall have to pay. We shall
+pay in gold, we may have to pay in battleships and material. Our stocks
+of corn have been allowed to fall and to-day we have less than a month's
+supply in England. Every producing country in the world will stop
+exporting instantly, and they, too, with the harvest nearly due, will be
+near the end of their stocks. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, in your judgment,
+is it possible to save the crops by local action?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it," he said; "it would mean the mobilisation of millions of
+men, the surrounding of all corn-tracts&mdash;and even then I doubt if your
+protection would be efficacious. You could send the stuff into the
+fields by a hundred methods. The only thing to do is to catch van
+Heerden and stifle the scheme at its fountain-head."</p>
+
+<p>The Chief of the Foreign Ministry strode up and down the room, his hands
+thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"It means our holding out for twelve months," he said. "Can we do it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p><p>"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"More than that? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have
+consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be
+infected for ten years."</p>
+
+<p>The four men looked at one another helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric
+of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a
+hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very
+end of civilization!"</p>
+
+<p>Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.</p>
+
+<p>Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of
+a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more
+human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were
+studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.</p>
+
+<p>McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped
+and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a
+sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble
+of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill
+high-pitched whine of a newsboy.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare
+headlines than a newspaper sensation.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but
+for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would
+turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.</p>
+
+<p>"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I
+had on August 1, 1914&mdash;that sensation of unreality."</p>
+
+<p>His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into
+which he had fallen, and he started.</p>
+
+<p>"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> act&mdash;Mr. McNorton,
+you will go back to Scotland Yard and ask the Chief Commissioner to
+attend at the office of the Privy Seal. Mr. Beale will keep in touch
+with me all the time."</p>
+
+<p>Without any formal leave-taking he made his exit, followed by
+Superintendent McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a badly rattled man," said Kitson shrewdly, "the Government may
+fall on this news. What will you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get van Heerden," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the job of your life," said Kitson quietly, and Beale knew within
+a quarter of an hour that the lawyer did not exaggerate.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden had disappeared with dramatic suddenness. Detectives who
+visited his flat discovered that his personal belongings had been
+removed in the early hours of the morning. He had left with two trunks
+(which were afterwards found in a cloak-room of a London railway
+terminus) and a companion who was identified as Milsom. Whether the car
+had gone east or north, south or west, nobody knew.</p>
+
+<p>In the early editions of the evening newspapers, side by side with the
+account of the panic scenes on 'Change was the notice:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Air Ministry announce the suspension of Order 63 of
+Trans-Marine Flight Regulations. No aeroplane will be allowed to
+cross the coastline by day or night without first descending at a
+coast control station. Aerial patrols have orders to force down any
+machine which does not obey the 'Descend' signal. This signal is
+now displayed at all coast stations."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Every railway station in England, every port of embarkation, were
+watched by police. The one photograph of van Heerden in existence,
+thousands of copies of an excellent snapshot taken by one of Beale's
+assistants, were distributed by aeroplane to every district centre. At
+two o'clock Hilda Glaum was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+showed neither surprise nor resentment and offered no information as to
+van Heerden's whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the afternoon there were the usual crops of false arrest and
+detention of perfectly innocent people, and at five o'clock it was
+announced that all telegraphic communication with the Continent and with
+the Western Hemisphere was suspended until further notice.</p>
+
+<p>Beale came back from Barking, whither he had gone to interview a
+choleric commercial traveller who bore some facial resemblance to van
+Heerden, and had been arrested in consequence, and discovered that
+something like a Council of War was being held in Kitson's private room.</p>
+
+<p>McNorton and two of his assistants were present. There was an
+Under-Secretary from the Foreign Office, a great scientist whose
+services had been called upon, and a man whom he recognized as a member
+of the Committee of the Corn Exchange. He shook his head in answer to
+McNorton's inquiring glance, and would have taken his seat at the table,
+but Kitson, who had risen on his entrance, beckoned him to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"We can do without you for a little while, Beale," he said, lowering his
+voice. "There's somebody there," he jerked his head to a door which led
+to another room of his suite, "who requires an explanation, and I think
+your time will be so fully occupied in the next few days that you had
+better seize this opportunity whilst you have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell!" said Beale, in despair.</p>
+
+<p>The old man nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"What does she know?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is for you to discover," said Kitson gently, and pushed him toward
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>With a quaking heart he turned the knob and stepped guiltily into the
+presence of the girl who in the eyes of the law was his wife.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM</h3>
+
+<p>She rose to meet him, and he stood spellbound, still holding the handle
+of the door. It seemed that she had taken on new qualities, a new and an
+ethereal grace. At the very thought even of his technical possession of
+this smiling girl who came forward to greet him, his heart thumped so
+loudly that he felt she must hear it. She was pale, and there were dark
+shadows under her eyes, but the hand that gripped his was firm and warm
+and living.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to thank you for much, Mr. Beale," she said. "Mr. Kitson has
+told me that I owe my rescue to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he?" he asked awkwardly, and wondered what else Kitson had told
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to be very sensible, and I want you to help me, because you
+are the most sensible man I know."</p>
+
+<p>She went back to the lounge-chair where she had been sitting, and
+pointed to another.</p>
+
+<p>"It was horribly melodramatic, wasn't it? but I suppose the life of a
+detective is full of melodrama."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, brimming over," he said. "If you keep very quiet I will give you a
+r&eacute;sum&eacute; of my most interesting cases," he said, making a pathetic attempt
+to be flippant, and the girl detected something of his insincerity.</p>
+
+<p>"You have had a trying day," she said, with quick sympathy, "have you
+arrested Doctor van Heerden?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Before he is arrested," she spoke with some hesitation, "I want one
+little matter cleared up. I asked Mr. Kitson, but he put me off and said
+you would tell me everything."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he asked steadily.</p>
+
+<p>She got up and went to her bag which stood upon a side-table, opened it
+and took out something which she laid on the palm of her hand. She came
+back with hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> extended, and Beale looked at the glittering object on
+her palm and was speechless.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, having no words for the moment, for "that" was a thin gold
+ring.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a wedding ring," she said, "and I found it on my finger when I
+recovered."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Beale blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Was I married?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He made two or three ineffectual attempts to speak and ended by nodding.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared so," she said quietly, "you see I recollect nothing of what
+happened. The last thing I remembered was Doctor van Heerden sitting
+beside me and putting something into my arm. It hurt a little, but not
+very much, and I remember I spoke to him. I think it was about you," a
+little colour came to her face, "or perhaps he was speaking about you, I
+am not sure," she said hurriedly; "I know that you came into it somehow,
+and that is all I can recall."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing else?" he asked dismally.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Try, try, try to remember," he urged her.</p>
+
+<p>He realized he was being a pitiable coward and that he wanted to shift
+the responsibility for the revelation upon her. She smiled, and shook
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry but I can't remember anything. Now you are going to tell
+me."</p>
+
+<p>He discovered that he was sitting on the edge of the chair and that he
+was more nervous than he had ever been in his life.</p>
+
+<p>"So I am going to tell you," he said, in a hollow voice, "of course I'll
+tell you. It is rather difficult, you understand."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it must be difficult for a man like you to speak of your own
+achievements. But for once you are going to be immodest," she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," he began, "I knew van Heerden wanted to marry you. I
+knew that all along. I guessed he wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> to marry you for your money,
+because in the circumstances there was nothing else he could want to
+marry you for," he added. "I mean," he corrected himself hastily, "that
+money was the most attractive thing to him."</p>
+
+<p>"This doesn't sound very flattering," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am being crude, but you will forgive me when you learn what I
+have to say," he said huskily. "Van Heerden wanted to marry you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And he married me," she said, "and I am going to break that marriage as
+soon as I possibly can."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I hope so," said Stanford Beale. "I believe it is difficult,
+but I will do all I possibly can. Believe me, Miss Cresswell&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not Miss Cresswell any longer," she said with a wry little face,
+"but please don't call me by my real name."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," he said fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew he wanted to marry me for my money and not for my beauty or my
+accomplishments," she said, "and so you followed me down to Deans
+Folly."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, but I must explain. I know it will sound horrible to you and
+you may have the lowest opinion of me, but I have got to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>He saw the look of alarm gather in her eyes and plunged into his story.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that if you were already married van Heerden would be
+satisfied and take no further steps against you."</p>
+
+<p>"But I wasn't already married," she said, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, wait, please," he begged, "keep that in your mind, that I was
+satisfied van Heerden wanted you for your money, and that if you were
+already married or even if you weren't and he thought you were I could
+save you from dangers, the extent of which even I do not know. And there
+was a man named Homo, a crook. He had been a parson and had all the
+manner and style of his profession. So I got a special licence in my own
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"You?" she said breathlessly. "A marriage licence? To marry me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p><p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And I took Homo with me in my search for you. I knew that I should have
+a very small margin of time, and I thought if Homo performed the
+ceremony and I could confront van Heerden with the accomplished
+deed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She sprang to her feet with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see, I see," she said. "Oh, how splendid! And you went through
+this mock ceremony! Where was I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You were at the window," he said miserably.</p>
+
+<p>"But how lovely! And you were outside and your parson with the funny
+name&mdash;but that's delicious! So I wasn't married at all and this is your
+ring." She picked it up with a mocking light in her eyes, and held it
+out to him, but he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You were married," he said, in a voice which was hardly audible.</p>
+
+<p>"Married? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Homo was not a fake! He was a real clergyman! And the marriage was
+legal!"</p>
+
+<p>They looked at one another without speaking. On the girl's part there
+was nothing but pure amazement; but Stanford Beale read horror,
+loathing, consternation and unforgiving wrath, and waited, as the
+criminal waits for his sentence, upon her next words.</p>
+
+<p>"So I am really married&mdash;to you," she said wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You will never forgive me, I know." He did not look at her now. "My own
+excuse is that I did what I did because I&mdash;wanted to save you. I might
+have sailed in with a gun and shot them up. I might have waited my
+chance and broken into the house. I might have taken a risk and
+surrounded the place with police, but that would have meant delay. I
+didn't do the normal things or take the normal view&mdash;I couldn't with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>He did not see the momentary tenderness in her eyes, because he was not
+looking at her, and went on:</p>
+
+<p>"That's the whole of the grisly story. Mr. Kitson will advise you as to
+what steps you may take to free yourself. It was a most horrible
+blunder, and it was all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> more tragic because you were the victim,
+you of all the persons in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>She had put the ring down, and now she took it up again and examined it
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather&mdash;quaint, isn't it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very."</p>
+
+<p>He thought he heard a sob and looked up. She was laughing, at first
+silently, then, as the humour of the thing seized her, her laugh rang
+clear and he caught its infection.</p>
+
+<p>"It's funny," she said at last, wiping her eyes, "there is a humorous
+side to it. Poor Mr. Beale!"</p>
+
+<p>"I deserve a little pity," he said ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked quickly. "Have you committed bigamy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not noticeably so," he answered, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you going to do about it? It's rather serious when one
+thinks of it&mdash;seriously. So I am Mrs. Stanford Beale&mdash;poor Mr. Beale,
+and poor Mrs. Beale-to-be. I do hope," she said, and this time her
+seriousness was genuine, "that I have not upset any of your plans&mdash;too
+much. Oh," she sat down suddenly, staring at him, "it would be awful,"
+she said in a hushed voice, "and I would never forgive myself. Is
+there&mdash;forgive my asking the question, but I suppose," with a flashing
+smile, "as your wife I am entitled to your confidence&mdash;is there somebody
+you are going to marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have neither committed bigamy nor do I contemplate it," said Beale,
+who was gradually recovering his grip of the situation, "if you mean am
+I engaged to somebody&mdash;in fact, to a girl," he said recklessly, "the
+answer is in the negative. There will be no broken hearts on my side of
+the family. I have no desire to probe your wounded heart&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be flippant," she stopped him sternly; "it is a very terrible
+situation, Mr. Beale, and I hardly dare to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I realize how terrible it is," he said, suddenly bold, "and as I tell
+you, I will do everything I can to correct my blunder."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>"Does Mr. Kitson know?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"What did Mr. Kitson say? Surely he gave you some advice."</p>
+
+<p>"He said&mdash;&mdash;" began Stanford, and went red.</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not pursue the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let us talk about the matter like rational beings," she said
+cheerfully. "I have got over my first inclination to swoon. You must
+curb your very natural desire to be haughty."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell you what we can do yet. I don't want to discuss the
+unpleasant details of a divorce," he said, "and perhaps you will let me
+have a few days before we decide on any line of action. Van Heerden is
+still at large, and until he is under lock and key and this immense
+danger which threatens the world is removed, I can hardly think
+straight."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kitson has told me about van Heerden," she said quietly. "Isn't it
+rather a matter for the English police to deal with? As I have reason to
+know," she shivered slightly, "Doctor van Heerden is a man without any
+fear or scruple."</p>
+
+<p>"My scruples hardly keep me awake at night," he said, "and I guess I'm
+not going to let up on van Heerden. I look upon it as my particular
+job."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it"&mdash;she hesitated&mdash;"isn't it rather dangerous?"</p>
+
+<p>"For me?" he laughed, "no, I don't think so. And even if it were in the
+most tragic sense of the word dangerous, why, that would save you a
+great deal of unpleasantness."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are being horrid," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," he responded quickly, "I was fishing for a little pity,
+and it was rather cheap and theatrical. No, I do not think there is very
+much danger. Van Heerden is going to keep under cover, and he is after
+something bigger than my young life."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Milsom with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is the weak link in van Heerden's scheme," Beale said. "Somehow van
+Heerden doesn't strike me as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> good team leader, and what little I have
+seen of Milsom leads me to the belief that he is hardly the man to
+follow the doctor's lead blindly. Besides, it is always easier to catch
+two men than one," he laughed. "That is an old detective's axiom and it
+works out."</p>
+
+<p>She put out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a tangled business, isn't it?" she said. "I mean us. Don't let it
+add to your other worries. Forget our unfortunate relationship until we
+can smooth things out."</p>
+
+<p>He shook her hand in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"And now I am coming out to hear all that you clever people suggest,"
+she said. "Please don't look alarmed. I have been talking all the
+afternoon and have been narrating my sad experience&mdash;such as I
+remember&mdash;to the most important people. Cabinet Ministers and police
+commissioners and doctors and things."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He took from his pocket a stout book.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wondering what that was," she laughed. "You haven't been buying
+me reading-matter?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, and held the volume so that she could read the title.</p>
+
+<p>"'A Friend in Need,' by S. Beale. I didn't know you wrote!" she said in
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I am literary and even worse," he said flippantly. "I see you have a
+shelf of books here. If you will allow me I will put it with the
+others."</p>
+
+<p>"But mayn't I see it?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I just want to tell you all you have said about van Heerden is true. He
+is a most dangerous man. He may yet be dangerous to you. I don't want
+you to touch that little book unless you are in really serious trouble.
+Will you promise me?"</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes wide.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Beale&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you promise me?" he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'll promise you, but I don't quite understand."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p><p>"You will understand," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door for her and she passed out ahead of him. Kitson came
+to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose there is no news?" asked Stanford.</p>
+
+<p>"None," said the other, "except high political news. There has been an
+exchange of notes between the Triple Alliance and the German Government.
+All communication with the Ukraine is cut off, and three ships have been
+sunk in the Bosphorus so cleverly that our grain ships in the Black Sea
+are isolated."</p>
+
+<p>"That's bad," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>He walked to the table. It was littered with maps and charts and printed
+tabulations. McNorton got up and joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just had a 'phone message through from the Yard," he said.
+"Carter, my assistant, says that he's certain van Heerden has not left
+London."</p>
+
+<p>"Has the girl spoken?"</p>
+
+<p>"Glaum? No, she's as dumb as an oyster. I doubt if you would get her to
+speak even if you put her through the third degree, and we don't allow
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am told," said Beale dryly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Unlock it somebody," said Kitson. "I turned the key."</p>
+
+<p>The nearest person was the member of the Corn Exchange Committee, and he
+clicked back the lock and the door opened to admit a waiter.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a man here&mdash;&mdash;" he said; but before he could say more he was
+pushed aside and a dusty, dishevelled figure stepped into the room and
+glanced round.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Milsom," he said. "I have come to give King's Evidence!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LOST CODE</h3>
+
+<p>"I'm Milsom," said the man in the doorway again.</p>
+
+<p>His clothes were grimed and dusty, his collar limp and soiled. There
+were two days' growth of red-grey stubble on his big jaw, and he bore
+himself like a man who was faint from lack of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>He walked unsteadily to the table and fell into a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is van Heerden?" asked Beale, but Milsom shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I left him two hours ago, after a long and unprofitable talk on
+patriotism," he said, and laughed shortly. "At that time he was making
+his way back to his house in Southwark."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he is in London&mdash;here in London!"</p>
+
+<p>Milsom nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't find him," he said brusquely. "I tell you I've left him after
+a talk about certain patriotic misgivings on my part&mdash;look!"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his right hand, which hitherto he had kept concealed by his
+side, and Oliva shut her eyes and felt deathly sick.</p>
+
+<p>"Right index digit and part of the phalanges shot away," said Milsom
+philosophically. "That was my trigger-finger&mdash;but he shot first. Give me
+a drink!"</p>
+
+<p>They brought him a bottle of wine, and he drank it from a long tumbler
+in two great breathless gulps.</p>
+
+<p>"You've closed the coast to him," he said, "you shut down your wires and
+cables, you're watching the roads, but he'll get his message through,
+if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then he hasn't cabled?" said Beale eagerly. "Milsom, this means liberty
+for you&mdash;liberty and comfort. Tell us the truth, man, help us hold off
+this horror that van Heerden is loosing on the world and there's no
+reward too great for you."</p>
+
+<p>Milsom's eyes narrowed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p><p>"It wasn't the hope of reward or hope of pardon that made me break with
+van Heerden," he said in his slow way. "You'd laugh yourself sick if I
+told you. It was&mdash;it was the knowledge that this country would be down
+and out; that the people who spoke my tongue and thought more or less as
+I thought should be under the foot of the Beast&mdash;fevered sentimentality!
+You don't believe that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it."</p>
+
+<p>It was Oliva who spoke, and it appeared that this was the first time
+that Milsom had noticed her presence, for his eyes opened wider.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;oh, you believe it, do you?" and he nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"But why is van Heerden waiting?" asked McNorton. "What is he waiting
+for?"</p>
+
+<p>The big man rolled his head helplessly from side to side, and the hard
+cackle of his laughter was very trying to men whose nerves were raw and
+on edge.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the fatal lunacy of it! I think it must be a national
+characteristic. You saw it in the war again and again&mdash;a wonderful plan
+brought to naught by some piece of over-cleverness on the part of the
+super-man."</p>
+
+<p>A wild hope leapt to Beale's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it has failed! The rust has not answered&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>But Milsom shook his head wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"The rust is all that he thinks&mdash;and then some," he said. "No, it isn't
+that. It is in the work of organization where the hitch has occurred.
+You know something of the story. Van Heerden has agents in every country
+in the world. He has spent nearly a hundred thousand pounds in
+perfecting his working plans, and I'm willing to admit that they are
+wellnigh perfect. Such slight mistakes as sending men to South Africa
+and Australia where the crops are six months later than the European and
+American harvests may be forgiven, because the German thinks
+longitudinally, and north and south are the two points of the compass
+which he never bothers his head about. If the Germans had been a
+seafaring people they'd have discovered America before Columbus, but
+they would never have found the North Pole or rounded the Cape in a
+million years."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p><p>He paused, and they saw the flicker of a smile in his weary eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole scheme is under van Heerden's hand. At the word 'Go'
+thousands of his agents begin their work of destruction&mdash;but the word
+must come from him. He has so centralized his scheme that if he died
+suddenly without that word being uttered, the work of years would come
+to naught. I guess he is suspicious of everybody, including his new
+Government. For the best part of a year he has been arranging and
+planning. With the assistance of a girl, a compatriot of his, he has
+reduced all things to order. In every country is a principal agent who
+possesses a copy of a simple code. At the proper moment van Heerden
+would cable a word which meant 'Get busy' or 'Hold off until you hear
+from me,' or 'Abandon scheme for this year and collect cultures.' I
+happen to be word-perfect in the meanings of the code words because van
+Heerden has so often drummed them into me."</p>
+
+<p>"What are the code words?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm coming to that," nodded Milsom. "Van Heerden is the type of
+scientist that never trusts his memory. You find that kind in all the
+school&mdash;they usually spend their time making the most complete and
+detailed notes, and their studies are packed with memoranda. Yet he had
+a wonderful memory for the commonplace things&mdash;for example, in the plain
+English of his three messages he was word perfect. He could tell you
+off-hand the names and addresses of all his agents. But when it came to
+scientific data his mind was a blank until he consulted his authorities.
+It seemed that once he made a note his mind was incapable of retaining
+the information he had committed to paper. That, as I say, is a
+phenomenon which is not infrequently met with amongst men of science."</p>
+
+<p>"And he had committed the code to paper?" asked Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming to that. After the fire at the Paddington works, van
+Heerden said the time had come to make a get away. He was going to the
+Continent, I was to sail for Canada. 'Before you go,' he said, 'I will
+give you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> the code&mdash;but I am afraid that I cannot do that until after
+ten o'clock.'"</p>
+
+<p>McNorton was scribbling notes in shorthand and carefully circled the
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>"We went back to his flat and had breakfast together&mdash;it was then about
+five o'clock. He packed a few things and I particularly noticed that he
+looked very carefully at the interior of a little grip which he had
+brought the previous night from Staines. He was so furtive, carrying the
+bag to the light of the window, that I supposed he was consulting his
+code, and I wondered why he should defer giving me the information until
+ten o'clock. Anyway, I could swear he took something from the bag and
+slipped it into his pocket. We left the flat soon after and drove to a
+railway station where the baggage was left. Van Heerden had given me
+bank-notes for a thousand pounds in case we should be separated, and I
+went on to the house in South London. You needn't ask me where it is
+because van Heerden is not there."</p>
+
+<p>He gulped again at the wine.</p>
+
+<p>"At eleven o'clock van Heerden came back," resumed Milsom, "and if ever
+a man was panic-stricken it was he&mdash;the long and the short of it is that
+the code was mislaid."</p>
+
+<p>"Mislaid!" Beale was staggered.</p>
+
+<p>Here was farce interpolated into tragedy&mdash;the most grotesque, the most
+unbelievable farce.</p>
+
+<p>"Mislaid," said Milsom. "He did not say as much, but I gathered from the
+few disjointed words he flung at me that the code was not irredeemably
+lost; in fact, I have reason to believe that he knows where it is. It
+was after that that van Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of
+me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained
+all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help
+him in a burglary&mdash;and burglary is not my forte."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he want to burgle?" asked McNorton, with professional
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! There you have me! It was the question I asked and he refused to
+answer. I was to put myself in his hands and there was to be some
+shooting if, as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> thought likely, a caretaker was left on the premises
+to be entered. I told him flat&mdash;we were sitting on Wandsworth Common at
+the time&mdash;that he could leave me out, and that is where we became
+mutually offensive."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his maimed hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I dressed it roughly at a chemist's. The iodine open dressing isn't
+beautiful, but it is antiseptic. He shot to kill, too, there's no doubt
+about that. A very perfect little gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's in London?" said McNorton. "That simplifies matters."</p>
+
+<p>"To my mind it complicates rather than simplifies," said Beale. "London
+is a vast proposition. Can you give us any idea as to the hour the
+burglary was planned for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven," said Milsom promptly, "that is to say, in a little over an
+hour's time."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have no idea of the locality?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somewhere in the East of London. We were to have met at Aldgate."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand it," said McNorton. "Do you suggest that the code is
+in the hands of somebody who is not willing to part with it? And now
+that he no longer needs it for you, is there any reason why he should
+wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every reason," replied Milsom, and Stanford Beale nodded in agreement.
+"It was not only for me he wanted it. He as good as told me that unless
+he recovered it he would be unable to communicate with his men."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think he'll do?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll get Bridgers to assist him. Bridgers is a pretty sore man, and
+the doctor knows just where he can find him."</p>
+
+<p>As Oliva listened an idea slowly dawned in her mind that she might
+supply a solution to the mystery of the missing code. It was a wildly
+improbable theory she held, but even so slender a possibility was not to
+be discarded. She slipped from the group and went back to her room. For
+the accommodation of his ward, James Kitson had taken the adjoining
+suite to his own and had secured a lady's maid from an agency for the
+girl's service. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> passed through the sitting-room to her own bedroom,
+and found the maid putting the room ready for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Minnie," she said, throwing a quick glance about the apartment, "where
+did you put the clothes I took off when I came?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, miss."</p>
+
+<p>The girl opened the wardrobe and Oliva made a hurried search.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you find&mdash;anything, a little ticket?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, miss. It was in your stocking."</p>
+
+<p>Oliva laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you thought it was rather queer, finding that sort of thing
+in a girl's stocking," she asked, but the maid was busily opening the
+drawers of the dressing-table in search of something.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is, miss."</p>
+
+<p>She held a small square ticket in her hand and held it with such
+disapproving primness that Oliva nearly laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I found it in your stocking, miss," she said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," said Oliva coolly, "that's where I put it. I always carry
+my pawn tickets in my stocking."</p>
+
+<p>The admirable Minnie sniffed.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you have never seen such a thing," smiled Oliva, "and you
+hardly knew what it was."</p>
+
+<p>The lady's maid turned very red. She had unfortunately seen many such
+certificates of penury, but all that was part of her private life, and
+she had been shocked beyond measure to be confronted with this
+too-familiar evidence of impecuniosity in the home of a lady who
+represented to her an assured income and comfortable pickings.</p>
+
+<p>Oliva went back to her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a
+sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which
+arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed
+her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the
+details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand
+stepped into the room.</p>
+
+<p>If they had missed her after she had left nobody saw her return. They
+were sitting in a group about the table,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> firing questions at the big
+unshaven man who had made such a dramatic entrance to the conference and
+who, with a long cigar in the corner of his mouth, was answering readily
+and fluently.</p>
+
+<p>But faced with the tangible workings of criminal investigation her
+resolution and her theories shrank to vanishing-point. She clasped the
+ticket in her hand and felt for a pocket, but the dressmaker had not
+provided her with that useful appendage.</p>
+
+<p>So she turned and went softly back to her room, praying that she would
+not be noticed. She closed the door gently behind her and turned to meet
+a well-valeted man in evening-dress who was standing in the middle of
+the room, a light overcoat thrown over his arm, his silk hat tilted back
+from his forehead, a picture of calm assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move," said van Heerden, "and don't scream. And be good enough to
+hand over the pawn ticket you are holding in your hand."</p>
+
+<p>Silently she obeyed, and as she handed the little pasteboard across the
+table which separated them she looked past him to the bookshelf behind
+his head, and particularly to a new volume which bore the name of
+Stanford Beale.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WATCH</h3>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said van Heerden, pocketing the ticket, "it is of no use to me
+now, for I cannot wait. I gather that you have not disclosed the fact
+that this ticket is in your possession."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how you gather that," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Lower your voice!" he hissed menacingly. "I gather as much because
+Beale knew the ticket would not be in my possession now. If he only
+knew, if he only had a hint of its existence, I fear my scheme would
+fail. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> it is, it will succeed. And now," he said with a smile, "time
+is short and your preparations must be of the briefest. I will save you
+the trouble of asking questions by telling you that I am going to take
+you along with me. I certainly cannot afford to leave you. Get your
+coat."</p>
+
+<p>With a shrug she walked past him to the bedroom and he followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we going far?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>There was no tremor in her voice and she felt remarkably self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"That you will discover," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not asking out of idle curiosity, but I want to know whether I
+ought to take a bag."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it would be better," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She carried the little attach&eacute; case back to the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"You have no objection to my taking a little light reading-matter?" she
+asked contemptuously. "I am afraid you are not a very entertaining
+companion, Dr. van Heerden."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent girl," said van Heerden cheerfully. "Take anything you like."</p>
+
+<p>She slipped a book from the shelf and nearly betrayed herself by an
+involuntary exclamation as she felt its weight.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not very original in your methods," she said, "this is the
+second time you have spirited me off."</p>
+
+<p>"The gaols of England, as your new-found friend Milsom will tell you,
+are filled with criminals who departed from the beaten tracks," said van
+Heerden. "Walk out into the corridor and turn to the right. I will be
+close behind you. A little way along you will discover a narrow passage
+which leads to the service staircase. Go down that. I am sure you
+believe me when I say that I will kill you if you attempt to make any
+signal or scream or appeal for help."</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer. It was because of this knowledge and this fear,
+which was part of her youthful equipment&mdash;for violent death is a very
+terrible prospect to the young and the healthy&mdash;that she obeyed him at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>They walked down the stone stairs, through an untidy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> low-roofed lobby,
+redolent of cooking food, into the street, without challenge and without
+attracting undue notice.</p>
+
+<p>Van Heerden's car was waiting at the end of the street, and she thought
+she recognized the chauffeur as Bridgers.</p>
+
+<p>"Once more we ride together," said van Heerden gaily, "and what will be
+the end of this adventure for you depends entirely upon your
+loyalty&mdash;what are you opening your bag for?" he asked, peering in the
+dark.</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking for a handkerchief," said Oliva. "I am afraid I am going
+to cry!"</p>
+
+<p>He settled himself back in the corner of the car with a sigh of
+resignation, accepting her explanation&mdash;sarcasm was wholly wasted on van
+Heerden.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"Well, gentlemen," said Milsom, "I don't think there's anything more I
+can tell you. What are you going to do with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take the responsibility of not executing the warrant," said
+McNorton. "You will accompany one of my men to his home to-night and you
+will be under police supervision."</p>
+
+<p>"That's no new experience," said Milsom, "there's only one piece of
+advice I want to give you."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is?" asked Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't underrate van Heerden. You have no conception of his nerve. There
+isn't a man of us here," he said, "whose insurance rate wouldn't go up
+to ninety per cent. if van Heerden decided to get him. I don't profess
+that I can help you to explain his strange conduct to-day. I can only
+outline the psychology of it, but how and where he has hidden his code
+and what circumstances prevent its recovery, is known only to van
+Heerden."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded to the little group, and accompanied by McNorton left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes a pretty bad man," said Kitson, "or I am no judge of
+character. He's an old lag, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Murder," he said laconically. "He lived after his time. He should have
+been a contemporary of the Borgias."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>"A poisoner!" shuddered one of the under-secretaries. "I remember the
+case. He killed his nephew and defended himself on the plea that the
+youth was a degenerate, as he undoubtedly was."</p>
+
+<p>"He might have got that defence past in America or France," said Beale,
+"but unfortunately there was a business end to the matter. He was the
+sole heir of his nephew's considerable fortune, and a jury from the
+Society of Eugenics would have convicted him on that."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch and turned his eyes to Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"I presume Miss Cresswell is bored and has retired for the night," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find out in a moment," said Kitson. "Did you speak to her?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded, and his eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you make any progress?"</p>
+
+<p>"I broke the sad news to her, if that's what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"You told her she was married to you? Good heavens! What did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she didn't faint, I don't think she's the fainting kind. She is
+cursed with a sense of humour, and refused even to take a tragic view."</p>
+
+<p>"That's bad," said Kitson, shaking his head. "A sense of humour is out
+of place in a divorce court, and that is where your little romance is
+going to end, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," said Beale calmly, and the other stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You have promised me," he began, with a note of acerbity in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have advised me," said Beale.</p>
+
+<p>Kitson choked down something which he was going to say, but which he
+evidently thought was better left unsaid.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," he commanded, "I will find out whether Miss Cresswell," he
+emphasized the words, "has gone to bed."</p>
+
+<p>He passed through the door to Oliva's sitting-room and was gone a few
+minutes. When he came back Beale saw his troubled face, and ran forward
+to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>"She's not there," said Kitson.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p><p>"Not in her room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither in the sitting-room nor the bedroom. I have rung for her maid.
+Oh, here you are."</p>
+
+<p>Prim Minnie came through the bedroom door.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she was with you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" said Beale, stooped and picked up a white kid glove.
+"She surely hasn't gone out," he said in consternation.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not a lady's glove, sir," said the girl, "that is a
+gentleman's."</p>
+
+<p>It was a new glove, and turning it over he saw stamped inside the words:
+"Glebler, Rotterdam."</p>
+
+<p>"Has anybody been here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to my knowledge, sir. The young lady told me she did not want me
+any more to-night." The girl hesitated. It seemed a veritable betrayal
+of her mistress to disclose such a sordid matter as the search for a
+pawn ticket.</p>
+
+<p>Beale noticed the hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"You must tell me everything, and tell me quickly," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said the maid, "the lady came in to look for something she
+brought with her when she came here."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember!" cried Kitson, "she told me she had brought away something
+very curious from van Heerden's house and made me guess what it was.
+Something interrupted our talk&mdash;what was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said the maid, resigned, "I won't tell you a lie, sir. It
+was a pawn ticket."</p>
+
+<p>"A pawn ticket!" cried Kitson and Beale in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?" asked the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely sure, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But she couldn't have brought a pawn ticket from van Heerden's house.
+What was it for?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What was on the pawn ticket?" said Kitson impatiently. "What article
+had been pledged?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the girl hesitated. To betray her mistress was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> unpleasant. To
+betray herself&mdash;as she would if she confessed that she had most
+carefully and thoroughly read the voucher&mdash;was unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what was on it," said Beale, in his best third degree manner,
+"now don't keep us waiting. What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A watch, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"How much was it pledged for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten shillings, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the name."</p>
+
+<p>"In a foreign name, sir&mdash;van Horden."</p>
+
+<p>"Van Heerden," said Beale quickly, "and at what pawnbrokers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said the girl, making a fight for her reputation, "I only
+glanced at the ticket and I only noticed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you did," interrupted Beale sharply, "you read every line of it.
+Where was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rosenblaum Bros., of Commercial Road," blurted the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Any number?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see the number."</p>
+
+<p>"You will find them in the telephone book," said Kitson. "What does it
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>But Beale was half-way to Kitson's sitting-room, arriving there in time
+to meet McNorton who had handed over his charge to his subordinate.</p>
+
+<p>"I've found it!" cried Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Found what?" asked Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>"The code!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where? How?" asked McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I am altogether wrong the code is contained, either engraved on
+the case or written on a slip of paper enclosed within the case of a
+watch. Can't you see it all plainly now? Van Heerden neither trusted his
+memory nor his subordinates. He had his simple code written, as we shall
+find, upon thin paper enclosed in the case of a hunter watch, and this
+he pledged. A pawnbroker's is the safest of safe deposits. Searching for
+clues, suppose the police had detected his preparations, the pledged
+ticket might have been easily overlooked."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p><p>Kitson was looking at him with an expression of amazed indignation.
+Here was a man who had lost his wife, and Kitson believed that this
+young detective loved the girl as few women are loved; but in the
+passion of the chase, in the production of a new problem, he was
+absorbed to the exclusion of all other considerations in the greater
+game.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he did Beale an injustice if he only knew, for the thought of
+Oliva's new peril ran through all his speculations, his rapid
+deductions, his lightning plans.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cresswell found the ticket and probably extracted it as a
+curiosity. These things are kept in little envelopes, aren't they,
+McNorton?"</p>
+
+<p>The police chief nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"That was it, then. She took it out and left the envelope behind, and
+van Heerden did not discover his loss until he went to find the voucher
+to give Milsom the code. Don't you remember? In the first place he said
+he couldn't give him the code until after ten o'clock, which is probably
+the hour the pawnbrokers open for business."</p>
+
+<p>McNorton nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"Then do you remember that Milsom said that the code was not
+irredeemably lost and that van Heerden knew where it was. In default of
+finding the ticket he decided to burgle the pawnbroker's, and that
+burglary is going through to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"But he could have obtained a duplicate of the ticket," said McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" asked Beale quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"By going before a magistrate and swearing an affidavit."</p>
+
+<p>"In his own name," said Beale, "you see, he couldn't do that. It would
+mean walking into the lion's den. No, burglary was his only chance."</p>
+
+<p>"But what of Oliva?" said Kitson impatiently, "I tell you, Beale, I am
+not big enough or stoical enough to think outside of that girl's
+safety."</p>
+
+<p>Beale swung round at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think I've forgotten that, do you?" he said in a low voice.
+"You don't think that has been out of my mind?" His face was tense and
+drawn. "I think,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> I believe that Oliva is safe," he said quietly. "I
+believe that Oliva and not any of us here will deliver van Heerden to
+justice."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad?" asked Kitson in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sane. Come here!"</p>
+
+<p>He gripped the old lawyer by the arm and led him back to the girl's
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," he said, and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, the bookshelf?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Half an hour ago I gave Oliva a book," he said, "that book is no longer
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"But in the name of Heaven how can a book save her?" demanded the
+exasperated Kitson.</p>
+
+<p>Stanford Beale did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, she's safe. I know she's safe," he said. "If Oliva is the
+girl I think she is then I see van Heerden's finish."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>A CORN CHANDLER'S BILL</h3>
+
+<p>The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a
+gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling,
+and Beale and McNorton alighted.</p>
+
+<p>It was a main street and was almost deserted. Beale looked up at the
+windows. They were dark. He knocked at the side-entrance of the shop,
+and presently the two men were joined by a policeman.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made
+himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at
+Highgate."</p>
+
+<p>He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A
+nightfarer who had been in the shade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> on the opposite side of the street
+came across and volunteered information.</p>
+
+<p>He had seen another car drive up and a gentleman had alighted. He had
+opened the door with a key and gone in. There was nothing suspicious
+about him. He was "quite a gentleman, and was in evening-dress." The
+constable thought it was one of the partners of Rosenblaum in convivial
+and resplendent garb. He had been in the house ten minutes then had come
+out again, locking the door behind him, and had driven off just before
+Beale's car had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until half an hour later that an agitated little man brought
+by the police from Highgate admitted the two men.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need to make a long search. The moment the light was
+switched on in the shop Beale made his discovery. On the broad counter
+lay a sheet of paper and a little heap of silver coins. He swept the
+money aside and read:</p>
+
+<p>"For the redemption of one silver hunter, 10s. 6d."</p>
+
+<p>It was signed in the characteristic handwriting that Beale knew so well
+"Van Heerden, M.D."</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at one another.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you make of that?" asked McNorton.</p>
+
+<p>Beale carried the paper to the light and examined it, and McNorton went
+on:</p>
+
+<p>"He's a pretty cool fellow. I suppose he had the money and the message
+all ready for our benefit."</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," he said, "this was done on the spur of the moment. A
+piece of bravado which occurred to him when he had the watch. Look at
+this paper. You can imagine him searching his pocket for a piece of
+waste paper and taking the first that came to his hand. It is written in
+ink with the pawnbroker's own pen. The inkwell is open," he lifted up
+the pen, "the nib is still wet," he said.</p>
+
+<p>McNorton took the paper from his hands.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bill from a corn-chandler's at Horsham, the type of bill that
+was sent in days of war economy which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> folded over and constituted its
+own envelope. It was addressed to "J. B. Harden, Esq." ("That was the
+<i>alias</i> he used when he took the wine vaults at Paddington," explained
+McNorton) and had been posted about a week before. Attached to the
+bottom of the account, which was for &pound;3 10s., was a little slip calling
+attention to the fact that "this account had probably been overlooked."</p>
+
+<p>Beale's finger traced the item for which the bill was rendered, and
+McNorton uttered an exclamation of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Curious, isn't it?" said Beale, as he folded the paper and put it away
+in his pocket, "how these very clever men always make some trifling
+error which brings them to justice. I don't know how many great schemes
+I have seen brought to nothing through some such act of folly as this,
+some piece of theatrical bravado which benefited the criminal nothing at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious," said McNorton wonderingly, "of course, that's what he
+is going to do. I never thought of that. It is in the neighbourhood of
+Horsham we must look for him, and I think if we can get one of the
+Messrs. Billingham out of bed in a couple of hours' time we shall do a
+good night's work."</p>
+
+<p>They went outside and again questioned the policeman. He remembered the
+car turning round and going back the way it had come. It had probably
+taken one of the innumerable side-roads which lead from the main
+thoroughfare, and in this way they had missed it.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go to the '<i>Megaphone</i>' office first," said Beale. "I have
+some good friends on that paper and I am curious to know how bad the
+markets are. The night cables from New York should be coming in by now."</p>
+
+<p>In his heart was a sickening fear which he dared not express. What would
+the morrow bring forth? If this one man's cupidity and hate should
+succeed in releasing the terror upon the world, what sort of a world
+would it leave? Through the windows of the car he could see the placid
+policemen patrolling the streets, caught a glimpse of other cars
+brilliantly illuminated bearing their laughing men and women back to
+homes, who were ignorant of the monstrous danger which threatened their
+security and life.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p><p>He passed the fa&ccedil;ades of great commercial mansions which in a month's
+time might but serve to conceal the stark ruin within.</p>
+
+<p>To him it was a night of tremendous tragedy, and for the second time in
+his life in the numbness induced by the greater peril and the greater
+anxiety he failed to wince at the thought of the danger in which Oliva
+stood.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, analysing his sensations she seemed to him on this occasion less
+a victim than a fellow-worker and he found a strange comfort in that
+thought of partnership.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Megaphone</i> buildings blazed with light when the car drew up to the
+door, messenger-boys were hurrying through the swing-doors, the two
+great elevators were running up and down without pause. The grey editor
+with a gruff voice threw over a bundle of flimsies.</p>
+
+<p>"Here are the market reports," he growled, "they are not very
+encouraging."</p>
+
+<p>Beale read them and whistled, and the editor eyed him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked the detective. "Wheat at a
+shilling a pound already. God knows what it's going to be to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Any other news?" asked Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"We have asked Germany to explain why she has prohibited the export of
+wheat and to give us a reason for the stocks she holds and the steps she
+has taken during the past two months to accumulate reserves."</p>
+
+<p>"An ultimatum?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly an ultimatum. There's nothing to go to war about. The
+Government has mobilized the fleet and the French Government has
+partially mobilized her army. The question is," he said, "would war ease
+the situation?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"The battle will not be fought in the field," he said, "it will be
+fought right here in London, in all your great towns, in Manchester,
+Coventry, Birmingham, Cardiff. It will be fought in New York and in a
+thousand townships between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and if the
+German scheme comes off we shall be beaten before a shot is fired."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p><p>"What does it mean?" asked the editor, "why is everybody buying wheat
+so frantically? There is no shortage. The harvests in the United States
+and Canada are good."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no harvests," said Beale solemnly; and the journalist
+gaped at him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE END OF VAN HEERDEN</h3>
+
+<p>Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies
+beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared
+to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleasant travelling-companion. When a man
+takes a girl, against her will, from a pleasant suite at the best hotel
+in London, compels her at the peril of death to accompany him on a
+motor-car ride in the dead of the night, and when his offence is a
+duplication of one which had been committed less than a week before, he
+not unnaturally anticipates tears, supplications, or in the alternative
+a frigid and unapproachable silence.</p>
+
+<p>To his amazement Oliva was extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and
+even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he
+investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros.,
+and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had
+been taciturn and uncommunicative was in quite an amiable mood.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to think," she said, "that motor-car abductions were the
+invention of sensational writers, but you seem to make a practice of it.
+You are not very original, Dr. van Heerden. I think I've told you that
+before."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled in the darkness as the car sped smoothly through the deserted
+streets.</p>
+
+<p>"I must plead guilty to being rather unoriginal," he said, "but I
+promise you that this little adventure shall not end as did the last."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p><p>"It can hardly do that," she laughed, "I can only be married once
+whilst Mr. Beale is alive."</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot you were married," he said suddenly, then after a pause, "I
+suppose you will divorce him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're not fond of that fellow, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Passionately," she said calmly, "he is my ideal."</p>
+
+<p>The reply took away his breath and certainly silenced him.</p>
+
+<p>"How is this adventure to end?" she demanded. "Are you going to maroon
+me on a desert island, or are you taking me to Germany?"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know I am trying to get to Germany?" he asked sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Beale thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he
+reckoned that he would catch you somewhere near the coast."</p>
+
+<p>"He did, did he?" said the other calmly. "I shall deny him that
+pleasure. I don't intend taking you to Germany. Indeed, it is not my
+intention to detain you any longer than is necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"For which I am truly grateful," she smiled, "but why detain me at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a stupid question to ask when I am sure you have no doubt in
+your mind as to why it is necessary to keep you close to me until I have
+finished my work. I think I told you some time ago," he went on, "that I
+had a great scheme. The other day you called me a Hun, by which I
+suppose you meant that I was a German. It is perfectly true that I am a
+German and I am a patriotic German. To me even in these days of his
+degradation the Kaiser is still little less than a god."</p>
+
+<p>His voice quivered a little, and the girl was struck dumb with wonder
+that a man of such intelligence, of such a wide outlook, of such
+modernity, should hold to views so archaic.</p>
+
+<p>"Your country ruined Germany. You have sucked us dry. To say that I hate
+England and hate America&mdash;for you Anglo-Saxons are one in your soulless
+covetousness&mdash;is to express my feelings mildly."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is your scheme?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p><p>"Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that
+to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics.
+America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my
+country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he
+cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the
+Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?" she asked, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is
+stored in Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about
+harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's
+wheat comes from America and from Russia."</p>
+
+<p>"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the
+American wheat&mdash;there will be no American wheat."</p>
+
+<p>And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst
+out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English.
+The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating
+hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette
+against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled
+incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best
+she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work
+in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names
+of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.</p>
+
+<p>So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to
+counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to
+her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he
+carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she
+cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you
+thanking God about?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p><p>"Oh, nothing, nothing." She was her eager, animated self. "Tell me some
+more. It is a wonderful story. It is true, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"True?" he laughed harshly, "you shall see how true it is. You shall see
+the world lie at the feet of German science. To-morrow the word will go
+forth. Look!" He clicked on a little electric light and held out his
+hand. In his palm lay a silver watch.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you there was a code" (she was dimly conscious that he had
+spoken of a code but she had been so occupied by her own thoughts that
+she had not caught all that he had said). "That code was in this watch.
+Look!"</p>
+
+<p>He pressed a knob and the case flew open. Pasted to the inside of the
+case was a circular piece of paper covered with fine writing.</p>
+
+<p>"When you found that ticket you had the code in your hands," he
+chuckled; "if you or your friends had the sense to redeem that watch I
+could not have sent to-morrow the message of German liberation! See, it
+is very simple!" He pointed with his finger and held the watch half-way
+to the roof that the light might better reveal the wording. "This word
+means 'Proceed.' It will go to all my chief agents. They will transmit
+it by telegram to hundreds of centres. By Thursday morning great
+stretches of territory where the golden corn was waving so proudly
+to-day will be blackened wastes. By Saturday the world will confront its
+sublime catastrophe."</p>
+
+<p>"But why have you three words?" she asked huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"We Germans provide against all contingencies," he said, "we leave
+nothing to chance. We are not gamblers. We work on lines of scientific
+accuracy. The second word is to tell my agents to suspend operations
+until they hear from me. The third word means 'Abandon the scheme for
+this year'! We must work with the markets. A more favourable opportunity
+might occur&mdash;with so grand a conception it is necessary that we should
+obtain the maximum results for our labours."</p>
+
+<p>He snapped the case of the watch and put it back in his pocket, turned
+out the light and settled himself back with a sigh of content.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>"You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and
+to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an
+ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile
+mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my
+fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my
+intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless&mdash;&mdash;" A
+thought struck him, and he frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless&mdash;&mdash;?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her
+assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to
+the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful
+fellow&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't?" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he said coolly. "I don't want you. Bridgers thinks that you
+are beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a Hun, too?" she asked, and he jerked round toward her.</p>
+
+<p>"If Bridgers wants you he shall have you," he said harshly.</p>
+
+<p>She knew she had made a mistake. There was no sense in antagonizing him,
+the more especially so since she had not yet learnt all that she wanted
+to know.</p>
+
+<p>"I think your scheme is horrible," she said after awhile, "the wheat
+destruction scheme, I mean, not Bridgers. But it is a very great one."</p>
+
+<p>The man was susceptible to flattery, for he became genial again.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is
+the most colossal crime&mdash;I suppose they will call it a crime&mdash;that has
+ever been committed."</p>
+
+<p>"But how are you going to get your code word away? The telegraphs are in
+the hands of the Government and I think you will find it difficult even
+if you have a secret wireless."</p>
+
+<p>"Wireless, bah!" he said scornfully. "I never expected to send it by
+telegraph with or without wires. I have a much surer way, fr&auml;ulein, as
+you will see."</p>
+
+<p>"But how will you escape?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p><p>"I shall leave England to-morrow, soon after daybreak," he replied,
+with assurance, "by aeroplane, a long-distance flying-machine will land
+on my Sussex farm which will have British markings&mdash;indeed, it is
+already in England, and I and my good Bridgers will pass your coast
+without trouble."</p>
+
+<p>He peered out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Horsham, I think," he said, as they swept through what appeared
+to the girl to be a square. "That little building on the left is the
+railway station. You will see the signal lamps in a moment. My farm is
+about five miles down the Shoreham Road."</p>
+
+<p>He was in an excellent temper as they passed through the old town and
+mounted the hill which leads to Shoreham, was politeness itself when the
+car had turned off the main road and had bumped over cart tracks to the
+door of a large building.</p>
+
+<p>"This is your last escapade, Miss Cresswell, or Mrs. Beale I suppose I
+should call you," he said jovially, as he pushed her before him into a
+room where supper had been laid for two. "You see, you were not
+expected, but you shall have Bridgers'. It will be daylight in two
+hours," he said inconsequently, "you must have some wine."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head with a smile, and he laughed as if the implied
+suspicion of her refusal was the best joke in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Nein, nein, little friend," he said, "I shall not doctor you again. My
+days of doctoring have passed."</p>
+
+<p>She had expected to find the farm in occupation, but apparently they
+were the only people there. The doctor had opened the door himself with
+a key, and no servant had appeared, nor apparently did he expect them to
+appear. She learnt afterwards that there were two farm servants, an old
+man and his wife, who lived in a cottage on the estate and came in the
+daytime to do the housework and prepare a cold supper against their
+master's coming.</p>
+
+<p>Bridgers did not make his appearance. Apparently he was staying with his
+car. About three o'clock in the morning, when the first streaks of grey
+were showing in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> the sky, van Heerden rose to go in search of his
+assistant. Until then he had not ceased to talk of himself, of his
+scheme, of his great plan, of his early struggles, of his difficulties
+in persuading members of his Government to afford him the assistance he
+required. As he turned to the door she checked him with a word:</p>
+
+<p>"I am immensely interested," she said, "but still, you have not told me
+how you intend to send your message."</p>
+
+<p>"It is simple," he said, and beckoned to her.</p>
+
+<p>They passed out of the house into the chill sweet dawn, made a
+half-circuit of the farm and came to a courtyard surrounded on three
+sides by low buildings. He opened a door to reveal another door covered
+with wire netting.</p>
+
+<p>"Behold!" he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Pigeons!" said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>The dark interior of the shed was aflicker with white wings.</p>
+
+<p>"Pigeons!" repeated van Heerden, closing the door, "and every one knows
+his way back to Germany. It has been a labour of love collecting them.
+And they are all British," he said with a laugh. "There I will give the
+British credit, they know more about pigeons than we Germans and have
+used them more in the war."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose your pigeon is shot down or falls by the way?" she asked,
+as they walked slowly back to the house.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall send fifty," replied van Heerden calmly; "each will carry the
+same message and some at least will get home."</p>
+
+<p>Back in the dining-room he cleared the remains of the supper from the
+table and went out of the room for a few minutes, returning with a small
+pad of paper, and she saw from the delicacy with which he handed each
+sheet that it was of the thinnest texture. Between each page he placed a
+carbon and began to write, printing the characters. There was only one
+word on each tiny sheet. When this was written he detached the leaves,
+putting them aside and using his watch as a paper-weight, and wrote
+another batch.</p>
+
+<p>She watched him, fascinated, until he showed signs that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> he had
+completed his task. Then she lifted the little valise which she had at
+her side, put it on her knees, opened it and took out a book. It must
+have been instinct which made him raise his eyes to her.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got there?" he asked sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a book," she said, with an attempt at carelessness.</p>
+
+<p>"But why have you got it out? You are not reading."</p>
+
+<p>He leant over and snatched it from her and looked at the title.</p>
+
+<p>"'A Friend in Need,'" he read. "By Stanford Beale&mdash;by Stanford Beale,"
+he repeated, frowning. "I didn't know your husband wrote books?"</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply. He turned back the cover and read the title page.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is 'Smiles's Self Help,'" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the same thing," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>He turned another page or two, then stopped, for he had come to a place
+where the centre of the book had been cut right out. The leaves had been
+glued together to disguise this fact, and what was apparently a book was
+in reality a small box.</p>
+
+<p>"What was in there?" he asked, springing to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"This," she said, "don't move, Dr. van Heerden!"</p>
+
+<p>The little hand which held the Browning was firm and did not quiver.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you are going to send your pigeons off this morning,
+doctor," she said. "Stand back from the table." She leant over and
+seized the little heap of papers and the watch. "I am going to shoot
+you," she said steadily, "if you refuse to do as I tell you; because if
+I don't shoot you, you will kill me."</p>
+
+<p>His face had grown old and grey in the space of a few seconds. The white
+hands he raised were shaking. He tried to speak but only a hoarse murmur
+came. Then his face went blank. He stared at the pistol, then stretched
+out his hands slowly toward it.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand back!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>He jumped at her, and she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, and
+the next minute she was struggling in his arms. The man was hysterical
+with fear and relief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> and was giggling and cursing in the same breath.
+He wrenched the pistol from her hand and threw it on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"You fool! You fool!" he shouted, "the safety-catch! You didn't put it
+down!"</p>
+
+<p>She could have wept with anger and mortification. Beale had put the
+catch of the weapon at safety, not realizing that she did not understand
+the mechanism of it, and van Heerden in one lightning glance had seen
+his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall
+suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your
+husband something which he will not touch!"</p>
+
+<p>He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed
+"Bridgers!"</p>
+
+<p>Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It
+is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"</p>
+
+<p>He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these
+was Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use your shouting for Bridgers because Bridgers is on the way
+to the jug," said McNorton. "I have a warrant for you, van Heerden."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor turned with a howl of rage, snatched up the pistol which lay
+on the table, and thumbed down the safety-catch.</p>
+
+<p>Beale and McNorton fired together, so that it seemed like a single shot
+that thundered through the room. Van Heerden slid forward, and fell
+sprawling across the table.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>It was the Friday morning, and Beale stepped briskly through the
+vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton, and declining the elevator went up the
+stairs two at a time. He burst into the room where Kitson and the girl
+were standing by the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Wheat prices are tumbling down," he said, "the message worked."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven for that!" said Kitson. "Then van Heerden's code message
+telling his gang to stop operations reached its destination!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p><p>"Its destinations," corrected Beale cheerfully. "I released thirty
+pigeons with the magic word. The agents have been arrested," he said;
+"we notified the Government authorities, and there was a sheriff or a
+policeman in every post office when the code word came through&mdash;van
+Heerden's agents saw some curious telegraph messengers yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>Kitson nodded and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, with a light in her
+eyes. "You must feel quite lost without this great quest of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"There are others," said Stanford Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"When do you return to America?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He fenced the question, but she brought him back to it.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a great deal of business to do in London before I go," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Like what?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he hesitated, "I have some legal business."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you suing somebody?" she asked, wilfully dense.</p>
+
+<p>He rubbed his head in perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't exactly know what I've got to
+do or what sort of figure I shall cut. I have never been in the Divorce
+Court before."</p>
+
+<p>"Divorce Court?" she said, puzzled, "are you giving evidence? Of course
+I know detectives do that sort of thing. I have read about it in the
+newspapers. It must be rather horrid, but you are such a clever
+detective&mdash;oh, by the way you never told me how you found me."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very simple matter," he said, relieved to change the subject,
+"van Heerden, by one of those curious lapses which the best of criminals
+make, left a message at the pawnbroker's which was written on the back
+of an account for pigeon food, sent to him from a Horsham tradesman. I
+knew he would not try to dispatch his message by the ordinary courses
+and I suspected all along that he had established a pigeon-post. The
+bill gave me all the information I wanted. It took us a long time to
+find the tradesman, but once we had discovered him he directed us to the
+farm. We took along a couple of local policemen and arrested Bridgers in
+the garage."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p><p>She shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"It was horrible, wasn't it?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It was rather dreadful, but it might have been very much worse," he
+added philosophically.</p>
+
+<p>"But how wonderful of you to switch yourself from the crime of that
+enthralling character to a commonplace divorce suit."</p>
+
+<p>"This isn't commonplace," he said, "it is rather a curious story."</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell me." She made a place for him on the window-ledge and he sat
+down beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a story of a mistake and a blunder," he said. "The plaintiff, a
+very worthy young man, passably good looking, was a man of my
+profession, a detective engaged in protecting the interests of a young
+and beautiful girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you have to say she's young and beautiful or the story
+wouldn't be interesting," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not necessary to lie in this case," he said, "she is certainly
+young and undoubtedly beautiful. She has the loveliest eyes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," she said hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"The detective," he resumed, "hereinafter called the petitioner,
+desiring to protect the innocent maiden from the machinations of a
+fortune-hunting gentleman no longer with us, contracted as he thought a
+fraudulent marriage with this unfortunate girl, believing thereby he
+could choke off the villain who was pursuing her."</p>
+
+<p>"But why did the unfortunate girl marry him, even fraudulently?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said Beale, "the villain of the piece had drugged her and she
+didn't know what she was doing. After the marriage," he went on, "he
+discovered that so far from being illegal it was good in law and he had
+bound this wretched female."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't be rude," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"He had bound this wretched female to him for life. Being a perfect
+gentleman, born of poor but American parents, he takes the first
+opportunity of freeing her."</p>
+
+<p>"And himself," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p><p>"As to the poor misguided lad," he said firmly, "you need feel no
+sympathy. He had behaved disgracefully."</p>
+
+<p>"How?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, he had already fallen in love with her and that made his
+offence all the greater. If you go red I cannot tell you this story,
+because it embarrasses me."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't gone red," she denied indignantly. "So what are you&mdash;what is
+he going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Beale shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He is going to work for a divorce."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?" she demanded. "What has she done?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well"&mdash;she shrugged her shoulders slightly and smiled in his face&mdash;"it
+seems to me that it is nothing to do with him. It is the wretched female
+who should sue for a divorce, not the handsome detective&mdash;do you feel
+faint?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you agree with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you," said the incoherent Beale. "But suppose her guardian
+takes the necessary steps?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"The guardian can do nothing unless the wretched female instructs him,"
+she said. "Does it occur to you that even the best of drugs wear off in
+time and that there is a possibility that the lady was not as
+unconscious of the ceremony as she pretends? Of course," she said
+hurriedly, "she did not realize that it had actually happened, and until
+she was told by Apollo from the Central Office&mdash;that's what you call
+Scotland Yard in New York, isn't it?&mdash;that the ceremony had actually
+occurred she was under the impression that it was a beautiful
+dream&mdash;when I say beautiful," she amended, in some hurry, "I mean not
+unpleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what am I to do?" said the helpless Beale.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I divorce you," said Oliva, and turned her head hurriedly, so
+that Beale only kissed the tip of her ear.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Rust, by Edgar Wallace
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Rust, by Edgar Wallace
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Green Rust
+
+Author: Edgar Wallace
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #24929]
+[Last Updated: September 10, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN RUST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN RUST
+
+BY
+
+EDGAR WALLACE
+
+WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON AND MELBOURNE
+
+
+MADE IN ENGLAND
+
+Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
+
+
+
+
+THE GREEN RUST
+
+
+_Novels by_
+EDGAR WALLACE
+
+_published by_
+WARD, LOCK AND CO., LTD.
+
+_The "Sanders" Stories_
+
+SANDERS OF THE RIVER
+BOSAMBO OF THE RIVER
+BONES
+LIEUTENANT BONES
+SANDI, THE KING-MAKER
+THE PEOPLE OF THE RIVER
+THE KEEPERS OF THE KING'S PEACE
+
+_Mystery Stories_
+
+THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
+THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
+BLUE HAND
+MR. JUSTICE MAXELL
+THE JUST MEN OF CORDOVA
+THE GREEN RUST
+THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG
+THE SECRET HOUSE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAP.                                     PAGE
+
+     I THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN         7
+    II THE DRUNKEN MR. BEALE                 14
+   III PUNSONBY'S DISCHARGE AN EMPLOYEE      24
+    IV THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE       35
+     V THE MAN WITH THE BIG HEAD             43
+    VI MR. SCOBBS OF RED HORSE VALLEY        50
+   VII PLAIN WORDS FROM MR. BEALE            58
+  VIII THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE       67
+    IX A CRIME AGAINST THE WORLD             74
+     X A FRUITLESS SEARCH                    85
+    XI THE HOUSE NEAR STAINES                93
+   XII INTRODUCING PARSON HOMO              102
+  XIII AT DEANS FOLLY                       109
+   XIV MR. BEALE SUGGESTS MARRIAGE          116
+    XV THE GOOD HERR STARDT                 124
+   XVI THE PAWN TICKET                      132
+  XVII THE JEW OF CRACOW                    139
+ XVIII BRIDGERS BREAKS LOOSE                148
+   XIX OLIVA IS WILLING                     156
+    XX THE MARRIAGE                         163
+   XXI BEALE SEES WHITE                     169
+  XXII HILDA GLAUM LEADS THE WAY            177
+ XXIII AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT                 185
+  XXIV THE GREEN RUST FACTORY               192
+   XXV THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH            198
+  XXVI THE SECRET OF THE GREEN RUST         204
+ XXVII A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD         212
+XXVIII THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM             219
+  XXIX THE LOST CODE                        227
+   XXX THE WATCH                            233
+  XXXI A CORNCHANDLER'S BILL                240
+ XXXII THE END OF VAN HEERDEN               244
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN
+
+
+"I don't know whether there's a law that stops my doing this, Jim; but
+if there is, you've got to get round it. You're a lawyer and you know
+the game. You're my pal and the best pal I've had, Jim, and you'll do it
+for me."
+
+The dying man looked up into the old eyes that were watching him with
+such compassion and read their acquiescence.
+
+No greater difference could be imagined than existed between the man on
+the bed and the slim neat figure who sat by his side. John Millinborn,
+broad-shouldered, big-featured, a veritable giant in frame and even in
+his last days suggesting the enormous strength which had been his in his
+prime, had been an outdoor man, a man of large voice and large capable
+hands; James Kitson had been a student from his youth up and had spent
+his manhood in musty offices, stuffy courts, surrounded by crackling
+briefs and calf-bound law-books.
+
+Yet, between these two men, the millionaire ship-builder and the
+successful solicitor, utterly different in their tastes and their modes
+of life, was a friendship deep and true. Strange that death should take
+the strong and leave the weak; so thought James Kitson as he watched his
+friend.
+
+"I'll do what can be done, John. You leave a great responsibility upon
+the girl--a million and a half of money."
+
+The sick man nodded.
+
+"I get rid of a greater one, Jim. When my father died he left a hundred
+thousand between us, my sister and I. I've turned my share into a
+million, but that is by the way. Because she was a fairly rich girl and
+a wilful girl, Jim, she broke her heart. Because they knew she had the
+money the worst men were attracted to her--and she chose the worst of
+the worst!"
+
+He stopped speaking to get his breath.
+
+"She married a plausible villain who ruined her--spent every sou and
+left her with a mountain of debt and a month-old baby. Poor Grace died
+and he married again. I tried to get the baby, but he held it as a
+hostage. I could never trace the child after it was two years old. It
+was only a month ago I learnt the reason. The man was an international
+swindler and was wanted by the police. He was arrested in Paris and
+charged in his true name--the name he had married in was false. When he
+came out of prison he took his own name--and of course the child's name
+changed, too."
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+"You want me to----?"
+
+"Get the will proved and begin your search for Oliva Predeaux. There is
+no such person. The girl's name you know, and I have told you where she
+is living. You'll find nobody who knows Oliva Predeaux--her father
+disappeared when she was six--he's probably dead, and her stepmother
+brought her up without knowing her relationship to me--then she died and
+the girl has been working ever since she was fifteen."
+
+"She is not to be found?"
+
+"Until she is married. Watch her, Jim, spend all the money you
+wish--don't influence her unless you see she is getting the wrong kind
+of man...."
+
+His voice, which had grown to something of the old strength, suddenly
+dropped and the great head rolled sideways on the pillow.
+
+Kitson rose and crossed to the door. It opened upon a spacious
+sitting-room, through the big open windows of which could be seen the
+broad acres of the Sussex Weald.
+
+A man was sitting in the window-seat, chin in hand, looking across to
+the chequered fields on the slope of the downs. He was a man of thirty,
+with a pointed beard, and he rose as the lawyer stepped quickly into the
+room.
+
+"Anything wrong?" he asked.
+
+"I think he has fainted--will you go to him, doctor?"
+
+The young man passed swiftly and noiselessly to the bedside and made a
+brief examination. From a shelf near the head of the bed he took a
+hypodermic syringe and filled it from a small bottle. Baring the
+patient's side he slowly injected the drug. He stood for a moment
+looking down at the unconscious man, then came back to the big hall
+where James Kitson was waiting.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+"It is difficult to form a judgment," he said quietly, "his heart is all
+gone to pieces. Has he a family doctor?"
+
+"Not so far as I know--he hated doctors, and has never been ill in his
+life. I wonder he tolerated you."
+
+Dr. van Heerden smiled.
+
+"He couldn't help himself. He was taken ill in the train on the way to
+this place and I happened to be a fellow-passenger. He asked me to bring
+him here and I have been here ever since. It is strange," he added,
+"that so rich a man as Mr. Millinborn had no servant travelling with him
+and should live practically alone in this--well, it is little better
+than a cottage."
+
+Despite his anxiety, James Kitson smiled.
+
+"He is the type of man who hates ostentation. I doubt if he has ever
+spent a thousand a year on himself all his life--do you think it is wise
+to leave him?"
+
+The doctor spread out his hands.
+
+"I can do nothing. He refused to allow me to send for a specialist and I
+think he was right. Nothing can be done for him. Still----"
+
+He walked back to the bedside, and the lawyer came behind him. John
+Millinborn seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, and after an examination by
+the doctor the two men walked back to the sitting-room.
+
+"The excitement has been rather much for him. I suppose he has been
+making his will?"
+
+"Yes," said Kitson shortly.
+
+"I gathered as much when I saw you bring the gardener and the cook in to
+witness a document," said Dr. van Heerden.
+
+He tapped his teeth with the tip of his fingers--a nervous trick of his.
+
+"I wish I had some strychnine," he said suddenly. "I ought to have some
+by me--in case."
+
+"Can't you send a servant--or I'll go," said Kitson. "Is it procurable
+in the village?"
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"I don't want you to go," he demurred. "I have sent the car to
+Eastbourne to get a few things I cannot buy here. It's a stiff walk to
+the village and yet I doubt whether the chemist would supply the
+quantity I require to a servant, even with my prescription--you see," he
+smiled, "I am a stranger here."
+
+"I'll go with pleasure--the walk will do me good," said the lawyer
+energetically. "If there is anything we can do to prolong my poor
+friend's life----"
+
+The doctor sat at the table and wrote his prescription and handed it to
+the other with an apology.
+
+Hill Lodge, John Millinborn's big cottage, stood on the crest of a hill,
+and the way to the village was steep and long, for Alfronston lay nearly
+a mile away. Half-way down the slope the path ran through a plantation
+of young ash. Here John Millinborn had preserved a few pheasants in the
+early days of his occupancy of the Lodge on the hill. As Kitson entered
+one side of the plantation he heard a rustling noise, as though somebody
+were moving through the undergrowth. It was too heavy a noise for a
+bolting rabbit or a startled bird to make, and he peered into the thick
+foliage. He was a little nearsighted, and at first he did not see the
+cause of the commotion. Then:
+
+"I suppose I'm trespassing," said a husky voice, and a man stepped out
+toward him.
+
+The stranger carried himself with a certain jauntiness, and he had need
+of what assistance artifice could lend him, for he was singularly
+unprepossessing. He was a man who might as well have been sixty as
+fifty. His clothes soiled, torn and greasy, were of good cut. The shirt
+was filthy, but it was attached to a frayed collar, and the crumpled
+cravat was ornamented with a cameo pin.
+
+But it was the face which attracted Kitson's attention. There was
+something inherently evil in that puffed face, in the dull eyes that
+blinked under the thick black eyebrows. The lips, full and loose, parted
+in a smile as the lawyer stepped back to avoid contact with the
+unsavoury visitor.
+
+"I suppose I'm trespassing--good gad! Me trespassing--funny, very
+funny!" He indulged in a hoarse wheezy laugh and broke suddenly into a
+torrent of the foulest language that this hardened lawyer had ever
+heard.
+
+"Pardon, pardon," he said, stopping as suddenly. "Man of the world, eh?
+You'll understand that when a gentleman has grievances...." He fumbled
+in his waistcoat-pocket and found a black-rimmed monocle and inserted it
+in his eye. There was an obscenity in the appearance of this foul wreck
+of a man which made the lawyer feel physically sick.
+
+"Trespassing, by gad!" He went back to his first conceit and his voice
+rasped with malignity. "Gad! If I had my way with people! I'd slit their
+throats, I would, sir. I'd stick pins in their eyes--red-hot pins. I'd
+boil them alive----"
+
+Hitherto the lawyer had not spoken, but now his repulsion got the better
+of his usually equable temper.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he asked sternly. "You're on private
+property--take your beastliness elsewhere."
+
+The man glared at him and laughed.
+
+"Trespassing!" he sneered. "Trespassing! Very good--your servant, sir!"
+
+He swept his derby hat from his head (the lawyer saw that he was bald),
+and turning, strutted back through the plantation the way he had come.
+It was not the way out and Kitson was half-inclined to follow and see
+the man off the estate. Then he remembered the urgency of his errand
+and continued his journey to the village. On his way back he looked
+about, but there was no trace of the unpleasant intruder. Who was he? he
+wondered. Some broken derelict with nothing but the memory of former
+vain splendours and the rags of old fineries, nursing a dear hatred for
+some more fortunate fellow.
+
+Nearly an hour had passed before he again panted up to the levelled
+shelf on which the cottage stood.
+
+The doctor was sitting at the window as Kitson passed.
+
+"How is he?"
+
+"About the same. He had one paroxysm. Is that the strychnine? I can't
+tell you how much obliged I am to you."
+
+He took the small packet and placed it on the window-ledge and Mr.
+Kitson passed into the house.
+
+"Honestly, doctor, what do you think of his chance?" he asked.
+
+Dr. van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Honestly, I do not think he will recover consciousness."
+
+"Heavens!"
+
+The lawyer was shocked. The tragic suddenness of it all stunned him. He
+had thought vaguely that days, even weeks, might pass before the end
+came.
+
+"Not recover consciousness?" he repeated in a whisper.
+
+Instinctively he was drawn to the room where his friend lay and the
+doctor followed him.
+
+John Millinborn lay on his back, his eyes closed, his face a ghastly
+grey. His big hands were clutching at his throat, his shirt was torn
+open at the breast. The two windows, one at each end of the room, were
+wide, and a gentle breeze blew the casement curtains. The lawyer
+stooped, his eyes moist, and laid his hand upon the burning forehead.
+
+"John, John," he murmured, and turned away, blinded with tears.
+
+He wiped his face with a pocket-handkerchief and walked to the window,
+staring out at the serene loveliness of the scene. Over the weald a
+great aeroplane droned to the sea. The green downs were dappled white
+with grazing flocks, and beneath the windows the ordered beds blazed
+and flamed with flowers, crimson and gold and white.
+
+As he stood there the man he had met in the plantation came to his mind
+and he was half-inclined to speak to the doctor of the incident. But he
+was in no mood for the description and the speculation which would
+follow. Restlessly he paced into the bedroom. The sick man had not moved
+and again the lawyer returned. He thought of the girl, that girl whose
+name and relationship with John Millinborn he alone knew. What use would
+she make of the millions which, all unknown to her, she would soon
+inherit? What----
+
+"Jim, Jim!"
+
+He turned swiftly.
+
+It was John Millinborn's voice.
+
+"Quick--come...."
+
+The doctor had leapt into the room and made his way to the bed.
+
+Millinborn was sitting up, and as the lawyer moved swiftly in the
+doctor's tracks he saw his wide eyes staring.
+
+"Jim, he has...."
+
+His head dropped forward on his breast and the doctor lowered him slowly
+to the pillow.
+
+"What is it, John? Speak to me, old man...."
+
+"I'm afraid there is nothing to be done," said the doctor as he drew up
+the bedclothes.
+
+"Is he dead?" whispered the lawyer fearfully.
+
+"No--but----"
+
+He beckoned the other into the big room and, after a glance at the
+motionless figure, Kitson followed.
+
+"There's something very strange--who is that?"
+
+He pointed through the open window at the clumsy figure of a man who was
+blundering wildly down the slope which led to the plantation.
+
+Kitson recognized the man immediately. It was the uninvited visitor whom
+he had met in the plantation. But there was something in the haste of
+the shabby man, a hint of terror in the wide-thrown arms, that made the
+lawyer forget his tragic environment.
+
+"Where has he been?" he asked.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+The doctor's face was white and drawn as though he, too, sensed some
+horror in that frantic flight.
+
+Kitson walked back to the room where the dying man lay, but was frozen
+stiff upon the threshold.
+
+"Doctor--doctor!"
+
+The doctor followed the eyes of the other. Something was dripping from
+the bed to the floor--something red and horrible. Kitson set his teeth
+and, stepping to the bedside, pulled down the covers.
+
+He stepped back with a cry, for from the side of John Millinborn
+protruded the ivory handle of a knife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE DRUNKEN MR. BEALE
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden's surgery occupied one of the four shops which formed
+the ground floor of the Krooman Chambers. This edifice had been erected
+by a wealthy philanthropist to provide small model flats for the
+professional classes who needed limited accommodation and a good address
+(they were in the vicinity of Oxford Street) at a moderate rental. Like
+many philanthropists, the owner had wearied of his hobby and had sold
+the block to a syndicate, whose management on more occasions than one
+had been the subject of police inquiry.
+
+They had then fallen into the hands of an intelligent woman, who had
+turned out the undesirable tenants, furnished the flats plainly, but
+comfortably, and had let them to tenants who might be described as
+solvent, but honest. Krooman Chambers had gradually rehabilitated itself
+in the eyes of the neighbourhood.
+
+Dr. van Heerden had had his surgery in the building for six years.
+During the war he was temporarily under suspicion for sympathies with
+the enemy, but no proof was adduced of his enmity and, though he had
+undoubtedly been born on the wrong side of the Border at Cranenburg,
+which is the Prussian frontier station on the Rotterdam-Cologne line,
+his name was undoubtedly van Heerden, which was Dutch. Change the "van"
+to "von," said the carping critics, and he was a Hun, and undoubtedly
+Germany was full of von Heerens and von Heerdens.
+
+The doctor lived down criticism, lived down suspicion, and got together
+a remunerative practice. He had the largest flat in the building, one
+room of which was fitted up as a laboratory, for he had a passion for
+research. The mysterious murder of John Millinborn had given him a
+certain advertisement which had not been without its advantages. The
+fact that he had been in attendance on the millionaire had brought him a
+larger fame.
+
+His theories as to how the murder had been committed by some one who had
+got through the open window whilst the two men were out of the room had
+been generally accepted, for the police had found footmarks on the
+flowerbeds, over which the murderer must have passed. They had not,
+however, traced the seedy-looking personage whom Mr. Kitson had seen.
+This person had disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived.
+
+Three months after the murder the doctor stood on the steps of the broad
+entrance-hall which led to the flats, watching the stream of pedestrians
+passing. It was six o'clock in the evening and the streets were alive
+with shop-girls and workers on their way home from business.
+
+He smoked a cigarette and his interest was, perhaps, more apparent than
+real. He had attended his last surgery case and the door of the "shop,"
+with its sage-green windows, had been locked for the night.
+
+His eyes wandered idly to the Oxford Street end of the thoroughfare, and
+suddenly he started. A girl was walking toward him. At this hour there
+was very little wheeled traffic, for Lattice Street is almost a
+cul-de-sac, and she had taken the middle of the road. She was dressed
+with that effective neatness which brings the wealthy and the work-girl
+to a baffling level, in a blue serge costume of severe cut; a plain
+white linen coat-collar and a small hat, which covered, but did not
+hide, a mass of hair which, against the slanting sunlight at her back,
+lent the illusion of a golden nimbus about her head.
+
+The eyes were deep-set and wise with the wisdom which is found alike in
+those who have suffered and those who have watched suffering. The nose
+was straight, the lips scarlet and full. You might catalogue every
+feature of Oliva Cresswell and yet arrive at no satisfactory explanation
+for her charm.
+
+Not in the clear ivory pallor of complexion did her charm lie. Nor in
+the trim figure with its promising lines, nor in the poise of head nor
+pride of carriage, nor in the ready laughter that came to those quiet
+eyes. In no one particular quality of attraction did she excel. Rather
+was her charm the charm of the perfect agglomeration of all those
+characteristics which men find alluring and challenging.
+
+She raised her hand with a free unaffected gesture, and greeted the
+doctor with a flashing smile.
+
+"Well, Miss Cresswell, I haven't seen you for quite a long time."
+
+"Two days," she said solemnly, "but I suppose doctors who know all the
+secrets of nature have some very special drug to sustain them in trials
+like that."
+
+"Don't be unkind to the profession," he laughed, "and don't be
+sarcastic, to one so young. By the way, I have never asked you did you
+get your flat changed?"
+
+She shook her head and frowned.
+
+"Miss Millit says she cannot move me."
+
+"Abominable," he said, and was annoyed. "Did you tell her about Beale?"
+
+She nodded vigorously.
+
+"I said to her, says I," she had a trick of mimicry and dropped easily
+into the southern English accent, "'Miss Millit, are you aware that the
+gentleman who lives opposite to me has been, to my knowledge,
+consistently drunk for two months--ever since he came to live at
+Kroomans?' 'Does he annoy you?' says she. 'Drunken people always annoy
+me,' says I. 'Mr. Beale arrives home every evening in a condition which
+I can only describe as deplorable.'"
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+The girl made a little grimace and became serious.
+
+"She said if he did not speak to me or interfere with me or frighten me
+it was none of my business, or something to that effect." She laughed
+helplessly. "Really, the flat is so wonderful and so cheap that one
+cannot afford to get out--you don't know how grateful I am to you,
+doctor, for having got diggings here at all--Miss Millit isn't keen on
+single young ladies."
+
+She sniffed and laughed.
+
+"Why do you laugh?" he asked.
+
+"I was thinking how queerly you and I met."
+
+The circumstances of their meeting had indeed been curious. She was
+employed as a cashier at one of the great West End stores. He had made
+some sort of purchase and made payment in a five-pound note which had
+proved to be counterfeit. It was a sad moment for the girl when the
+forgery was discovered, for she had to make up the loss from her own
+pocket and that was no small matter.
+
+Then the miracle had happened. The doctor had arrived full of apologies,
+had presented his card and explained. The note was one which he had been
+keeping as a curiosity. It has been passed on him and was such an
+excellent specimen that he intended having it framed but it had got
+mixed up with his other money.
+
+"You started by being the villain of the piece and ended by being my
+good fairy," she said. "I should never have known there was a vacancy
+here but for you. I should not have been admitted by the proper Miss
+Millit but for the terror of your name."
+
+She dropped her little hand lightly on his shoulder. It was a gesture of
+good-comradeship.
+
+She half-turned to go when an angry exclamation held her.
+
+"What is it? Oh, I see--No. 4!"
+
+She drew a little closer to the doctor's side and watched with narrowing
+lids the approaching figure.
+
+"Why does he do it--oh, why does he do it?" she demanded impatiently.
+"How can a man be so weak, so wretchedly weak? There's nothing justifies
+that!"
+
+"That" was apparently trying to walk the opposite kerb as though it
+were a tight-rope. Save for a certain disorder of attire, a protruding
+necktie and a muddy hat, he was respectable enough. He was young and,
+under other conditions, passably good looking. But with his fair hair
+streaming over his forehead and his hat at the back of his head he
+lacked fascination. His attempt, aided by a walking-stick used as a
+balancing-pole, to keep his equilibrium on six inches of kerbing, might
+have been funny to a less sensitive soul than Oliva's.
+
+He slipped, recovered himself with a little whoop, slipped again, and
+finally gave up the attempt, crossing the road to his home.
+
+He recognized the doctor with a flourish of his hat.
+
+"Glorious weather, my Escu-escu-lapius," he said, with a little slur in
+his voice but a merry smile in his eye; "simply wonderful weather for
+bacteria trypanosomes (got it) an' all the jolly little microbes."
+
+He smiled at the doctor blandly, ignoring the other's significant glance
+at the girl, who had drawn back so that she might not find herself
+included in the conversation.
+
+"I'm goin' to leave you, doctor," he went on, "goin' top floor, away
+from the evil smells of science an' fatal lure of beauty. Top floor
+jolly stiff climb when a fellow's all lit up like the Hotel
+Doodledum--per arduis ad astra--through labour to the stars--fine motto.
+Flying Corps' motto--my motto. Goo' night!"
+
+Off came his hat again and he staggered up the broad stone stairs and
+disappeared round a turn. Later they heard his door slam.
+
+"Awful--and yet----"
+
+"And yet?" echoed the doctor.
+
+"I thought he was funny. I nearly laughed. But how terrible! He's so
+young and he has had a decent education."
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+Presently she took leave of the doctor and made her way upstairs. Three
+doors opened from the landing. Numbers 4, 6 and 8.
+
+She glanced a little apprehensively at No. 4 as she passed, but there
+was no sound or sign of the reveller, and she passed into No. 6 and
+closed the door.
+
+The accommodation consisted of two rooms, a bed-and a sitting-room, a
+bath-room and a tiny kitchen. The rent was remarkably low, less than a
+quarter of her weekly earnings, and she managed to live comfortably.
+
+She lit the gas-stove and put on the kettle and began to lay the table.
+There was a "tin of something" in the diminutive pantry, a small loaf
+and a jug of milk, a tomato or two and a bottle of dressing--the high
+tea to which she sat down (a little flushed of the face and quite happy)
+was seasoned with content. She thought of the doctor and accounted
+herself lucky to have so good a friend. He was so sensible, there was no
+"nonsense" about him. He never tried to hold her hand as the stupid
+buyers did, nor make clumsy attempts to kiss her as one of the partners
+had done.
+
+The doctor was different from them all. She could not imagine him
+sitting by the side of a girl in a bus pressing her foot with his, or
+accosting her in the street with a "Haven't we met before?"
+
+She ate her meal slowly, reading the evening newspaper and dreaming at
+intervals. It was dusk when she had finished and she switched on the
+electric light. There was a shilling-in-the-slot meter in the bath-room
+that acted eccentrically. Sometimes one shilling would supply light for
+a week, at other times after two days the lights would flicker
+spasmodically and expire.
+
+She remembered that it was a perilous long time since she had bribed the
+meter and searched her purse for a shilling. She found that she had
+half-crowns, florins and sixpences, but she had no shillings. This, of
+course, is the chronic condition of all users of the slot-meters, and
+she accepted the discovery with the calm of the fatalist. She
+considered. Should she go out and get change from the obliging
+tobacconist at the corner or should she take a chance?
+
+"If I don't go out you will," she said addressing the light, and it
+winked ominously.
+
+She opened the door and stepped into the passage, and as she did so the
+lights behind her went out. There was one small lamp on the landing, a
+plutocratic affair independent of shilling meters. She closed the door
+behind her and walked to the head of the stairs. As she passed No. 4,
+she noted the door was ajar and she stopped. She did not wish to risk
+meeting the drunkard, and she turned back.
+
+Then she remembered the doctor, he lived in No. 8. Usually when he was
+at home there was a light in his hall which showed through the fanlight.
+Now, however, the place was in darkness. She saw a card on the door and
+walking closer she read it in the dim light.
+
+
+                +---------------------------------+
+                |                                 |
+                |                                 |
+                |        BACK AT 12. WAIT.        |
+                |                                 |
+                |                                 |
+                +---------------------------------+
+
+
+He was out and was evidently expecting a caller. So there was nothing
+for it but to risk meeting the exuberant Mr. Beale. She flew down the
+stairs and gained the street with a feeling of relief.
+
+The obliging tobacconist, who was loquacious on the subject of Germans
+and Germany, detained her until her stock of patience was exhausted; but
+at last she made her escape. Half-way across the street she saw the
+figure of a man standing in the dark hallway of the chambers, and her
+heart sank.
+
+"Matilda, you're a fool," she said to herself.
+
+Her name was not Matilda, but in moments of self-depreciation she was
+wont to address herself as such.
+
+She walked boldly up to the entrance and passed through. The man she saw
+out of the corner of her eye but did not recognize. He seemed as little
+desirous of attracting attention as she. She thought he was rather stout
+and short, but as to this she was not sure. She raced up the stairs and
+turned on the landing to her room. The door of No. 4 was still ajar--but
+what was much more important, so was her door. There was no doubt about
+it, between the edge of the door and the jamb there was a good two
+inches of space, and she distinctly remembered not only closing it, but
+also pushing it to make sure that it was fast. What should she do? To
+her annoyance she felt a cold little feeling inside her and her hands
+were trembling.
+
+"If the lights were only on I'd take the risk," she thought; but the
+lights were not on and it was necessary to pass into the dark interior
+and into a darker bath-room--a room which is notoriously adaptable for
+murder--before she could reach the meter.
+
+"Rubbish, Matilda!" she scoffed quaveringly, "go in, you frightened
+little rabbit--you forgot to shut the door, that's all."
+
+She pushed the door open and with a shiver stepped inside.
+
+Then a sound made her stop dead. It was a shuffle and a creak such as a
+dog might make if he brushed against the chair.
+
+"Who's there?" she demanded.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+She took one step forward and then something reached out at her. A big
+hand gripped her by the sleeve of her blouse and she heard a deep
+breathing.
+
+She bit her lips to stop the scream that arose, and with a wrench tore
+herself free, leaving a portion of a sleeve in the hands of the unknown.
+
+She darted backward, slamming the door behind her. In two flying strides
+she was at the door of No. 4, hammering with both her fists.
+
+"Drunk or sober he is a man! Drunk or sober he is a man!" she muttered
+incoherently.
+
+Only twice she beat upon the door when it opened suddenly and Mr. Beale
+stood in the doorway.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+She hardly noticed his tone.
+
+"A man--a man, in my flat," she gasped, and showed her torn sleeve, "a
+man...!"
+
+He pushed her aside and made for the door.
+
+"The key?" he said quickly.
+
+With trembling fingers she extracted it from her pocket.
+
+"One moment."
+
+He disappeared into his own flat and presently came out holding an
+electric torch. He snapped back the lock, put the key in his pocket and
+then, to her amazement, he slipped a short-barrelled revolver from his
+hip-pocket.
+
+With his foot he pushed open the door and she watched him vanish into
+the gloomy interior.
+
+Presently came his voice, sharp and menacing:
+
+"Hands up!"
+
+A voice jabbered something excitedly and then she heard Mr. Beale speak.
+
+"Is your light working?--you can come in, I have him in the
+dining-room."
+
+She stepped into the bath-room, the shilling dropped through the
+aperture, the screw grated as she turned it and the lights sprang to
+life.
+
+In one corner of the room was a man, a white-faced, sickly looking man
+with a head too big for his body. His hands were above his head, his
+lower lip trembled in terror.
+
+Mr. Beale was searching him with thoroughness and rapidity.
+
+"No gun, all right, put your hands down. Now turn out your pockets."
+
+The man said something in a language which the girl could not
+understand, and Mr. Beale replied in the same tongue. He put the
+contents, first of one pocket then of the other, upon the table, and the
+girl watched the proceedings with open eyes.
+
+"Hello, what's this?"
+
+Beale picked up a card. Thereon was scribbled a figure which might have
+been 6 or 4.
+
+"I see," said Beale, "now the other pocket--you understand English, my
+friend?"
+
+Stupidly the man obeyed. A leather pocket-case came from an inside
+pocket and this Beale opened.
+
+Therein was a small packet which resembled the familiar wrapper of a
+seidlitz powder. Beale spoke sharply in a language which the girl
+realized was German, and the man shook his head. He said something which
+sounded like "No good," several times.
+
+"I'm going to leave you here alone for awhile," said Beale, "my friend
+and I are going downstairs together--I shall not be long."
+
+They went out of the flat together, the little man with the big head
+protesting, and she heard their footsteps descending the stairs.
+Presently Beale came up alone and walked into the sitting-room. And then
+the strange unaccountable fact dawned on her--he was perfectly sober.
+
+His eyes were clear, his lips firm, and the fair hair whose tendencies
+to bedragglement had emphasized his disgrace was brushed back over his
+head. He looked at her so earnestly that she grew embarrassed.
+
+"Miss Cresswell," he said quietly. "I am going to ask you to do me a
+great favour."
+
+"If it is one that I can grant, you may be sure that I will," she
+smiled, and he nodded.
+
+"I shall not ask you to do anything that is impossible in spite of the
+humorist's view of women," he said. "I merely want you to tell nobody
+about what has happened to-night."
+
+"Nobody?" she looked at him in astonishment. "But the doctor----"
+
+"Not even the doctor," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I ask you
+this as a special favour--word of honour?"
+
+She thought a moment.
+
+"I promise," she said. "I'm to tell nobody about that horrid man from
+whom you so kindly saved me----"
+
+He lifted his head.
+
+"Understand this, Miss Cresswell, please," he said: "I don't want you to
+be under any misapprehension about that 'horrid man'--he was just as
+scared as you, and he would not have harmed you. I have been waiting for
+him all the evening."
+
+"Waiting for him?"
+
+He nodded again.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the doctor's flat," he said calmly, "you see, the doctor and I are
+deadly rivals. We are rival scientists, and I was waiting for the hairy
+man to steal a march on him."
+
+"But, but--how did you get in."
+
+"I had this key," he said holding up a small key, "remember, word of
+honour! The man whom I have just left came up and wasn't certain whether
+he had to go in No. 8, that's the doctor's, or No. 6--_and the one key
+fits both doors!_"
+
+He inserted the key which was in the lock of her door and it turned
+easily.
+
+"And this is what I was waiting for--it was the best the poor devil
+could do."
+
+He lifted the paper package and broke the seals. Unfolding the paper
+carefully he laid it on the table, revealing a teaspoonful of what
+looked like fine green sawdust.
+
+"What is it?" she whispered fearfully.
+
+Somehow she knew that she was in the presence of a big elementary
+danger--something gross and terrible in its primitive force.
+
+"That," said Mr. Beale, choosing his words nicely, "that is a passable
+imitation of the Green Rust, or, as it is to me, the Green Terror."
+
+"The Green Rust? What is the Green Rust--what can it do?" she asked in
+bewilderment.
+
+"I hope we shall never know," he said, and in his clear eyes was a hint
+of terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PUNSONBY'S DISCHARGE AN EMPLOYEE
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell rose with the final despairing buzz of her alarm clock
+and conquered the almost irresistible temptation to close her eyes, just
+to see what it felt like. Her first impression was that she had had no
+sleep all night. She remembered going to bed at one and turning from
+side to side until three. She remembered deciding that the best thing to
+do was to get up, make some tea and watch the sun rise, and that whilst
+she was deciding whether such a step was romantic or just silly, she
+must have gone to sleep.
+
+Still, four hours of slumber is practically no slumber to a healthy girl
+and she swung her pyjama-ed legs over the side of the bed and spent
+quite five minutes in a fatuous admiration of her little white feet.
+With an effort she dragged herself to the bath-room and let the tap run.
+Then she put on the kettle. Half an hour later she was feeling well but
+unenthusiastic.
+
+When she became fully conscious, which was on her way to business, she
+realized she was worried. She had been made a party to a secret without
+her wish--and the drunken Mr. Beale, that youthful profligate, had
+really forced this confidence upon her. Only, and this she recalled with
+a start which sent her chin jerking upward (she was in the bus at the
+time and the conductor, thinking she was signalling him to stop, pulled
+the bell), only Mr. Beale was surprisingly sober and masterful for one
+so weak of character.
+
+Ought she to tell the doctor--Dr. van Heerden, who had been so good a
+friend of hers? It seemed disloyal, it was disloyal, horribly disloyal
+to him, to hide the fact that Mr. Beale had actually been in the
+doctor's room at night.
+
+But was it a coincidence that the same key opened her door and the
+doctor's? If it were so, it was an embarrassing coincidence. She must
+change the locks without delay.
+
+The bus set her down at the corner of Punsonby's great block. Punsonby's
+is one of the most successful and at the same time one of the most
+exclusive dress-houses in London, and Oliva had indeed been fortunate in
+securing her present position, for employment at Punsonby's was almost
+equal to Government employment in its permanency, as it was certainly
+more lucrative in its pay.
+
+As she stepped on to the pavement she glanced up at the big ornate
+clock. She was in good time, she said to herself, and was pushing open
+the big glass door through which employees pass to the various
+departments when a hand touched her gently on the arm.
+
+She turned in surprise to face Mr. Beale, looking particularly smart in
+a well-fitting grey suit, a grey felt hat and a large bunch of violets
+in his buttonhole.
+
+"Excuse me, Miss Cresswell," he said pleasantly, "may I have one word
+with you?"
+
+She looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"I rather wish you had chosen another time and another place, Mr.
+Beale," she said frankly.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I realize it is rather embarrassing," he said, "but unfortunately my
+business cannot wait. I am a business man, you know," he smiled, "in
+spite of my dissolute habits."
+
+She looked at him closely, for she thought she detected a gentle mockery
+behind his words, but he was not smiling now.
+
+"I won't keep you more than two minutes," he went on, "but in that two
+minutes I have a great deal to tell you. I won't bore you with the story
+of my life."
+
+This time she saw the amusement in his eyes and smiled against her will,
+because she was not feeling particularly amused.
+
+"I have a business in the city of London," he said, "and again I would
+ask you to respect my confidence. I am a wheat expert."
+
+"A wheat expert?" she repeated with a puzzled frown.
+
+"It's a queer job, isn't it? but that's what I am. I have a vacancy in
+my office for a confidential secretary. It is a nice office, the pay is
+good, the hours are few and the work is light. I want to know whether
+you will accept the position."
+
+She shook her head, regarding him with a new interest, from which
+suspicion was not altogether absent.
+
+"It is awfully kind of you, Mr. Beale, and adds another to the debts I
+owe you," she said, "but I have no desire to leave Punsonby's. It is
+work I like, and although I am sure you are not interested in my
+private business"--he could have told her that he was very much
+interested in her private business, but he refrained--"I do not mind
+telling you that I am earning a very good salary and I have no intention
+or desire to change my situation."
+
+His eyes twinkled.
+
+"Ah well, that's my misfortune," he said, "there are only two things I
+can say. The first is that if you work for me you will neither be
+distressed nor annoyed by any habits of mine which you may have observed
+and which may perhaps have prejudiced you against me. In the second
+place, I want you to promise me that if you ever leave Punsonby's you
+will give me the first offer of your services."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I think you are very funny, Mr. Beale, but I feel sure that you mean
+what you say, and that you would confine your--er--little eccentricities
+to times outside of business hours. As far as leaving Punsonby's is
+concerned I promise you that I will give you the first offer of my
+invaluable services if ever I leave. And now I am afraid I must run
+away. I am awfully obliged to you for what you did for me last night."
+
+He looked at her steadily in the eye.
+
+"I have no recollection of anything that happened last night," he said,
+"and I should be glad if your memory would suffer the same lapse."
+
+He shook hands with her, lifted his hat and turned abruptly away, and
+she looked after him till the boom of the clock recalled her to the fact
+that the head of the firm of Punsonby was a stickler for punctuality.
+
+She went into the great cloak-room and hung up her coat and hat. As she
+turned to the mirror to straighten her hair she came face to face with a
+tall, dark girl who had been eyeing her thoughtfully.
+
+"Good morning," said Oliva, and there was in her tone more of politeness
+than friendship, for although these two girls had occupied the same
+office for more than a year, there was between them an incompatibility
+which no length of acquaintance could remove.
+
+Hilda Glaum was of Swiss extraction, and something of a mystery. She
+was good looking in a sulky, saturnine way, but her known virtues
+stopped short at her appearance. She neither invited nor gave
+confidence, and in this respect suited Oliva, but unlike Oliva, she made
+no friends, entered into none of the periodical movements amongst the
+girls, was impervious to the attractions of the river in summer and of
+the Proms in winter, neither visited nor received.
+
+"'Morning," replied the girl shortly; then: "Have you been upstairs?"
+
+"No--why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+Oliva mounted to the floor where her little office was. She and Hilda
+dealt with the registered mail, extracted and checked the money that
+came from the post-shoppers and sent on the orders to the various
+departments.
+
+Three sealed bags lay on her desk, and a youth from the postal
+department waited to receive a receipt for them. This she scribbled,
+after comparing the numbers attached to the seals with those inscribed
+on the boy's receipt-book.
+
+For some reason Hilda had not followed her, and she was alone and had
+tumbled the contents of the first bag on to her desk when the managing
+director of Punsonby's made a surprising appearance at the
+glass-panelled door of her office.
+
+He was a large, stout and important-looking man, bald and bearded. He
+enjoyed an episcopal manner, and had a trick of pulling back his head
+when he asked questions, as though he desired to evade the full force of
+the answer.
+
+He stood in the doorway and beckoned her out, and she went without any
+premonition of what was in store for her.
+
+"Ah, Miss Cresswell," he said. "I--ah--am sorry I did not see you before
+you had taken off your coat and hat. Will you come to my office?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. White," said the girl, wondering what had happened.
+
+He led the way with his majestic stride, dangling a pair of pince-nez
+by their cord, as a fastidious person might carry a mouse by its tail,
+and ushered her into his rosewood-panelled office.
+
+"Sit down, sit down, Miss Cresswell," he said, and seating himself at
+his desk he put the tips of his fingers together and looked up to the
+ceiling for inspiration. "I am afraid, Miss Cresswell," he said, "that I
+have--ah--an unpleasant task."
+
+"An unpleasant task, Mr. White?" she said, with a sinking feeling inside
+her.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I have to tell you that Punsonby's no longer require your services."
+
+She rose to her feet, looking down at him open-mouthed with wonder and
+consternation.
+
+"Not require my services?" she said slowly. "Do you mean that I am
+discharged?"
+
+He nodded again.
+
+"In lieu of a month's notice I will give you a cheque for a month's
+salary, plus the unexpired portion of this week's salary."
+
+"But why am I being discharged? Why? Why?"
+
+Mr. White, who had opened his eyes for a moment to watch the effect of
+his lightning stroke, closed them again.
+
+"It is not the practice of Punsonby's to give any reason for dispensing
+with the services of its employees," he said oracularly, "it is
+sufficient that I should tell you that hitherto you have given every
+satisfaction, but for reasons which I am not prepared to discuss we must
+dispense with your services."
+
+Her head was in a whirl. She could not grasp what had happened. For five
+years she had worked in the happiest circumstances in this great store,
+where everybody had been kind to her and where her tasks had been
+congenial. She had never thought of going elsewhere. She regarded
+herself, as did all the better-class employees, as a fixture.
+
+"Do I understand," she asked, "that I am to leave--at once?"
+
+Mr. White nodded. He pushed the cheque across the table and she took it
+up and folded it mechanically.
+
+"And you are not going to tell me why?"
+
+Mr. White shook his head.
+
+"Punsonby's do nothing without a good reason," he said solemnly, feeling
+that whatever happened he must make a good case for Punsonby's, and that
+whoever was to blame for this unhappy incident it was not an august firm
+which paid its fourteen per cent. with monotonous regularity. "We
+lack--ah--definite knowledge to proceed any further in this matter
+than--in fact, than we have proceeded. Definite knowledge" (the girl was
+all the more bewildered by his cumbersome diplomacy) "definite knowledge
+was promised but has not--in fact, has not come to hand. It is all very
+unpleasant--very unpleasant," and he shook his head.
+
+She bowed and turning, walked quickly from the room, passed to the lobby
+where her coat was hung, put on her hat and left Punsonby's for ever.
+
+It was when she had reached the street that, with a shock, she
+remembered Beale's words and she stood stock-still, pinching her lip
+thoughtfully. Had he known? Why had he come that morning, hours before
+he was ordinarily visible--if the common gossip of Krooman Mansions be
+worthy of credence?--and then as though to cap the amazing events of the
+morning she saw him. He was standing on the corner of the street,
+leaning on his cane, smoking a long cigarette through a much longer
+holder, and he seemed wholly absorbed in watching a linesman, perched
+high above the street, repairing a telegraph wire.
+
+She made a step toward him, but stopped. He was so evidently engrossed
+in the acrobatics of the honest workman in mid-air that he could not
+have seen her and she turned swiftly and walked the other way.
+
+She had not reached the end of the block before he was at her side.
+
+"You are going home early, Miss Cresswell," he smiled.
+
+She turned to him.
+
+"Do you know why?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know why--unless----"
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless you have been discharged," he said coolly.
+
+Her brows knit.
+
+"What do you know about my discharge?" she asked.
+
+"Such things are possible," said Mr. Beale.
+
+"Did you know I was going to be discharged?" she asked again.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I didn't exactly know you would be discharged this morning, but I had
+an idea you would be discharged at some time or other. That is why I
+came with my offer."
+
+"Which, of course, I won't accept," she snapped.
+
+"Which, of course, you have accepted," he said quietly. "Believe me, I
+know nothing more than that Punsonby's have been prevailed upon to
+discharge you. What reason induced them to take that step, honestly I
+don't know."
+
+"But why did you think so?"
+
+He was grave of a sudden.
+
+"I just thought so," he said. "I am not going to be mysterious with you
+and I can only tell you that I had reasons to believe that some such
+step would be taken."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders wearily.
+
+"It is quite mysterious enough," she said. "Do you seriously want me to
+work for you?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"You didn't tell me your city address."
+
+"That is why I came back," he said.
+
+"Then you knew I was coming out?"
+
+"I knew you would come out some time in the day."
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you would have waited all day to give me
+your address?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I only mean this," he replied, "that I should have waited all day."
+
+It was a helpless laugh which echoed his.
+
+"My address is 342 Lothbury," he went on, "342. You may begin work this
+afternoon and----" He hesitated.
+
+"And?" she repeated.
+
+"And I think it would be wise if you didn't tell your friend, the
+doctor, that I am employing you."
+
+He was examining his finger-nails attentively as he spoke, and he did
+not meet her eye.
+
+"There are many reasons," he went on. "In the first place, I have
+blotted my copy-book, as they say, in Krooman Mansions, and it might not
+rebound to your credit."
+
+"You should have thought of that before you asked me to come to you,"
+she said.
+
+"I thought of it a great deal," he replied calmly.
+
+There was much in what he said, as the girl recognized. She blamed
+herself for her hasty promise, but somehow the events of the previous
+night had placed him on a different footing, had given him a certain
+indefinable position to which the inebriate Mr. Beale had not aspired.
+
+"I am afraid I am rather bewildered by all the mystery of it," she said,
+"and I don't think I will come to the office to-day. To-morrow morning,
+at what hour?"
+
+"Ten o'clock," he said, "I will be there to explain your duties. Your
+salary will be L5 a week. You will be in charge of the office, to which
+I very seldom go, by the way, and your work will be preparing
+statistical returns of the wheat-crops in all the wheat-fields of the
+world for the last fifty years."
+
+"It sounds thrilling," she said, and a quick smile flashed across his
+face.
+
+"It is much more thrilling than you imagine," were his parting words.
+
+She reached Krooman Mansions just as the doctor was coming out, and he
+looked at her in surprise.
+
+"You are back early!"
+
+Should she tell him? There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had been
+a good friend of hers and she felt sure of his sympathy. It occurred to
+her at that moment that Mr. Beale had been most unsympathetic, and had
+not expressed one word of regret.
+
+"Yes, I've been discharged," she exclaimed.
+
+"Discharged? Impossible!"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"To prove that it is possible it has happened," she said cheerfully.
+
+"My dear girl, this is monstrous! What excuse did they give?"
+
+"None." This was said with a lightness of tone which did not reflect the
+indignation she felt at heart.
+
+"Did they give you no reason?"
+
+"They gave me none. They gave me my month's cheque and just told me to
+go off, and off I came like the well-disciplined wage-earner I am."
+
+"But it is monstrous," he said indignantly. "I will go and see them. I
+know one of the heads of the firm--at least, he is a patient of mine."
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind," she replied firmly. "It really
+doesn't matter."
+
+"What are you going to do? By Jove!" he said suddenly, "what a splendid
+idea! I want a clinical secretary."
+
+The humour of it got the better of her, and she laughed in his face.
+
+"What is the joke?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry, doctor, but you mustn't think I am ungrateful, but I
+am beginning to regard myself as one of the plums in the labour market."
+
+"Have you another position?" he asked quickly.
+
+"I have just accepted one," she said, and he did not disguise his
+disappointment, which might even have been interpreted, were Oliva more
+conceited, into absolute chagrin.
+
+"You are very quick," said he, and his voice had lost some of its
+enthusiasm. "What position have you taken?"
+
+"I am going into an office in the city," she said.
+
+"That will be dull. If you have settled it in your mind, of course, I
+cannot alter your decision, but I would be quite willing to give you L5
+or L6 a week, and the work would be very light."
+
+She held out her hand, and there was a twinkle in her eye.
+
+"London is simply filled with people who want to give me L5 a week for
+work which is very light; really I am awfully grateful to you, doctor."
+
+She felt more cheerful as she mounted the stairs than she thought would
+have been possible had such a position been forecast and had she to
+speculate upon the attitude of mind with which she would meet such a
+misfortune.
+
+Punsonby's, for all the humiliation of her dismissal, seemed fairly
+unimportant. Some day she would discover the circumstances which had
+decided the high gods who presided over the ready-made clothing business
+in their action.
+
+She unlocked the door and passed in, not without a comprehensive and an
+amused glance which took in the sober front doors of her new employer
+and her would-be employer.
+
+"Sarah, your luck's in," she said, as she banged the door--Sarah was the
+approving version of Matilda. "If the wheezy man fires you, be sure
+there'll be a good angel waiting on the doorstep to offer you L20 a week
+for 'phoning the office once a day."
+
+It occurred to her that it would be wise to place on record her protest
+against her summary dismissal, and she went to the little
+bookshelf-writing-table where she kept her writing-material to indite
+the epistle whilst she thought of it. It was one of those little
+fumed-oak contraptions where the desk is formed by a hinged flap which
+serves when not in use to close the desk.
+
+She pulled out the two little supports, inserted the key in the lock,
+but it refused to turn, for the simple reason that it was unlocked. She
+had distinctly remembered that morning locking it after putting away the
+bill which had arrived with the morning post.
+
+She pulled down the flap slowly and stared in amazement at the little
+which it hid. Every pigeon-hole had been ransacked and the contents were
+piled up in a confused heap. The two tiny drawers in which she kept
+stamps and nibs were out and emptied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE
+
+
+She made a rapid survey of the documents. They were unimportant, and
+consisted mainly of letters from the few girl friends she had made
+during her stay at Punsonby's--old theatre programmes, recipes copied
+from newspapers and bunches of snapshots taken on her last summer
+excursion.
+
+She arranged the things in some sort of rough order and made an
+inspection of her bedroom. Here, too, there was evidence that somebody
+had been searching the room. The drawers of her dressing-table were
+open, and though the contents had been little disturbed, it was clear
+that they had been searched. She made another discovery. The window of
+the bedroom was open at the bottom. Usually it was open half-way down
+from the top, and was fastened in that position by a patent catch. This
+precaution was necessary, because the window looked upon a narrow iron
+parapet which ran along the building and communicated with the
+fire-escape. She looked out. Evidently the intruder had both come and
+gone this way, and as evidently her return had disturbed him in his
+inspection, for it was hardly likely he would leave her papers and
+bureau in that state of confusion.
+
+She made a brief inspection of the drawers in the dressing-table, and so
+far as she could see nothing was missing. She went back to the
+writing-bureau, mechanically put away the papers, little
+memorandum-books and letters which had been dragged from their
+pigeon-holes, then resting her elbow on the desk she sat, chin in hand,
+her pretty forehead wrinkled in a frown, recalling the events of the
+morning.
+
+Who had searched her desk? What did they hope to discover? She had no
+illusions that this was the work of a common thief. There was something
+behind all this, something sinister and terrifying.
+
+What association had the search with her summary dismissal and what did
+the pompous Mr. White mean when he talked about definite knowledge?
+Definite knowledge of what? She gave it up with a shrug. She was not as
+much alarmed as disturbed. Life was grating a little, and she resented
+this departure from the smooth course which it had hitherto run. She
+resented the intrusion of Mr. Beale, who was drunk one moment and sober
+the next, who had offices in the city which he did not visit and who
+took such an inordinate interest in her affairs, and she resented him
+all the more because, in some indefinable way, he had shaken her
+faith--no, not shaken her faith, that was too strong a term--he had
+pared the mild romance which Dr. van Heerden's friendship represented.
+
+She got up from the table and paced the room, planning her day. She
+would go out to lunch and indulge in the dissipation of a matinee.
+Perhaps she would stay out to dinner and come back--she shivered
+unconsciously and looked round the room. Somehow she did not look
+forward to an evening spent alone in her flat.
+
+"Matilda, you're getting maudlin," she said, "you are getting romantic,
+too. You are reading too many sensational novels and seeing too many
+sensational films."
+
+She walked briskly into her bedroom, unhooked a suit from the wardrobe
+and laid it on the bed.
+
+At that moment there came a knock at the door. She put down the
+clothes-brush which was in her hand, walked out into the hall, opened
+the door and stepped back. Three men stood in the passage without. Two
+were strangers with that curious official look which the plain-clothes
+policeman can never wholly eradicate from his bearing. The third was Mr.
+White, more pompous and more solemn than ever.
+
+"Miss Cresswell?" asked one of the strangers.
+
+"That is my name."
+
+"May we come inside? I want to see you."
+
+She led the way to her little sitting-room. Mr. White followed in the
+rear.
+
+"Your name is Oliva Cresswell. You were recently employed by Punsonby's,
+Limited, as cashier."
+
+"That is true," she said, wondering what was coming next.
+
+"Certain information was laid against you," said the spokesman, "as a
+result of which you were discharged from the firm this morning?"
+
+She raised her eyebrows in indignant surprise.
+
+"Information laid against me?" she said haughtily. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean, that a charge was made against you that you were converting
+money belonging to the firm to your own use. That was the charge, I
+believe, sir?" He turned to Mr. White.
+
+Mr. White nodded slowly.
+
+"It is a lie. It is an outrageous lie," cried the girl, turning flaming
+eyes upon the stout managing director of Punsonby's. "You know it's a
+lie, Mr. White! Thousands of pounds have passed through my hands and I
+have never--oh, it's cruel."
+
+"If you will only keep calm for a little while, miss," said the man, who
+was not unused to such outbreaks, "I will explain that at the moment of
+your dismissal there was no evidence against you."
+
+"No definite knowledge of your offence," murmured Mr. White.
+
+"And now?" demanded the girl.
+
+"Now we have information, miss, to the effect that three registered
+letters, containing in all the sum of L63----"
+
+"Fourteen and sevenpence," murmured Mr. White.
+
+"Sixty-three pounds odd," said the detective, "which were abstracted by
+you yesterday are concealed in this flat."
+
+"In the left-hand bottom drawer of your bureau," murmured Mr. White.
+"That is the definite knowledge which has come to us--it is a great
+pity."
+
+The girl stared from one to the other.
+
+"Three registered envelopes," she said incredulously; "in this flat?"
+
+"In the bottom drawer of your bureau," mumbled Mr. White, who stood
+throughout the interview with his eyes closed, his hands clasped in
+front of him, a picture of a man performing a most painful act of duty.
+
+"I have a warrant----" began the detective.
+
+"You need no warrant," said the girl quietly, "you are at liberty to
+search this flat or bring a woman to search me. I have nothing in these
+rooms which I am ashamed that you should see."
+
+The detective turned to his companion.
+
+"Fred," he said, "just have a look over that writing-bureau. Is it
+locked, miss?"
+
+She had closed and locked the secretaire and she handed the man the key.
+The detective who had done the speaking passed into the bedroom, and the
+girl heard him pulling out the drawers. She did not move from where she
+stood confronting her late employer, still preserving his attitude of
+somnolent detachment.
+
+"Mr. White," she asked quietly, "I have a right to know who accused me
+of stealing from your firm."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+"Even a criminal has a right to that, you know," she said, recovering
+some of her poise. "I suppose that you have been missing things for
+quite a long while--people always miss things for quite a long while
+before the thief is discovered, according to the Sunday papers."
+
+"I do not read newspapers published on the Lord's Day," said Mr. White
+reproachfully. "I do not know the habits of the criminal classes, but as
+you say, and I fear I must convey the gist of your speech to the
+officers of the law, money has been missed from your department for a
+considerable time. As to your accuser, acting as--ah--as a good citizen
+and performing the duties which are associated with good-citizenship, I
+cannot reveal his, her, or their name."
+
+She was eyeing him curiously with a gleam of dormant laughter in her
+clear eyes. Then she heard a hurried footstep in the little passage and
+remembered that the door had been left open and she looked round.
+
+The new-comer was Dr. van Heerden.
+
+"What is this I hear?" he demanded fiercely, addressing White. "You dare
+accuse Miss Cresswell of theft?"
+
+"My dear doctor," began White.
+
+"It is an outrage," said the doctor. "It is disgraceful, Mr. White. I
+will vouch for Miss Cresswell with my life."
+
+The girl stopped him with a laugh.
+
+"Please don't be dramatic, doctor. It's really a stupid mistake. I
+didn't know you knew Mr. White."
+
+"It is a disgraceful mistake," said the doctor violently. "I am
+surprised at you, White."
+
+Mr. White could not close his eyes any tighter than they were closed. He
+passed the responsibility for the situation upon an invisible Providence
+with one heaving shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"It is awfully kind of you to take this interest, doctor," said the
+girl, putting out her hands to him, "it was just like you."
+
+"Is there anything I can do?" he asked earnestly. "You can depend upon
+me to the last shilling if any trouble arises out of this."
+
+"No trouble will arise out of it," she said. "Mr. White thinks that I
+have stolen money and that that money is hidden in the flat--by the way,
+who told you that I had been accused?"
+
+For a moment he was taken aback; then:
+
+"I saw the police officers go into your flat. I recognized them, and as
+they were accompanied by White, and you had been dismissed this morning,
+I drew my own conclusions."
+
+It was at this moment that the detective came back from the bedroom.
+
+"There's nothing there," he said.
+
+Mr. White opened his eyes to their fullest extent.
+
+"In the bottom drawer of the bureau?" he asked incredulously.
+
+"Neither in the bottom drawer nor the top drawer," said the detective.
+"Have you found anything, Fred?"
+
+"Nothing," said the other man.
+
+"Have a look behind those pictures."
+
+They turned up the corners of the carpets, searched her one little
+bookcase, looked under the tables, an unnecessary and amusing
+proceeding in the girl's eyes till the detective explained with that
+display of friendliness which all policemen show to suspected persons
+whom they do not at heart suspect, it was not an uncommon process for
+criminals to tack the proceeds of bank-note robberies to the underside
+of the table.
+
+"Well, miss," said the detective at last, with a smile, "I hope we
+haven't worried you very much. What do you intend doing, sir?" He
+addressed White.
+
+"Did you search the bottom drawer of the bureau?" said Mr. White again.
+
+"I searched the bottom drawer of the bureau, the top drawer and the
+middle drawer," said the detective patiently. "I searched the back of
+the bureau, the trinket-drawer, the trinket-boxes----"
+
+"And it was not there?" said Mr. White, as though he could not believe
+his ears.
+
+"It was not there. What I want to know is, do you charge this young
+lady? If you charge her, of course you take all the responsibility for
+the act, and if you fail to convict her you will be liable to an action
+for false arrest."
+
+"I know, I know, I know," said Mr. White, with remarkable asperity in
+one so placid. "No, I do not charge her. I am sorry you have been
+inconvenienced"--he turned to the girl in his most majestic manner--"and
+I trust that you bear no ill-will."
+
+He offered a large and flabby hand, but Oliva ignored it.
+
+"Mind you don't trip over the mat as you go out," she said, "the passage
+is rather dark."
+
+Mr. White left the room, breathing heavily.
+
+"Excuse me one moment," said the doctor in a low voice. "I have a few
+words to say to White."
+
+"Please don't make a fuss," said Oliva, "I would rather the matter
+dropped where it is."
+
+He nodded, and strode out after the managing director of Punsonby's.
+They made a little group of four.
+
+"Can I see you in my flat for a moment, Mr. White?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. White cheerfully.
+
+"You don't want us any more?" asked the detective.
+
+"No," said Mr. White; then: "Are you quite sure you searched the bottom
+drawer of the bureau?"
+
+"Perfectly sure," said the detective irritably, "you don't suppose I've
+been at this job for twenty years and should overlook the one place
+where I expected to find the letters."
+
+Mr. White was saved the labour of framing a suitable retort, for the
+door of Mr. Beale's flat was flung open and Mr. Beale came forth. His
+grey hat was on the back of his head and he stood erect with the aid of
+the door-post, surveying with a bland and inane smile the little knot of
+men.
+
+"Why," he said jovially, "it's the dear old doctor, and if my eyes don't
+deceive me, it's the jolly old Archbishop."
+
+Mr. White brindled. That he was known as the Archbishop in the intimate
+circles of his acquaintances afforded him a certain satisfaction. That a
+perfect stranger, and a perfectly drunken stranger at that, should
+employ a nickname which was for the use of a privileged few, distressed
+him.
+
+"And," said the swaying man by the door, peering through the
+half-darkness: "Is it not Detective-Sergeant Peterson and Constable
+Fairbank? Welcome to this home of virtue."
+
+The detective-sergeant smiled but said nothing. The doctor fingered his
+beard indecisively, but Mr. White essayed to stride past, his chin in
+the air, ignoring the greeting, but Mr. Beale was too quick for him. He
+lurched forward, caught the lapels of the other's immaculate frock-coat
+and held himself erect thereby.
+
+"My dear old Whitey," he said.
+
+"I don't know you, sir," cried Mr. White, "will you please unhand me?"
+
+"Don't know me, Whitey? Why you astonishing old thing!"
+
+He slipped his arm over the other's shoulder in an attitude of
+affectionate regard. "Don't know old Beale?"
+
+"I never met you before," said Mr. White, struggling to escape.
+
+"Bless my life and soul," said Mr. Beale, stepping back, shocked and
+hurt, "I call you to witnesh, Detective-Sergeant Peterson and amiable
+Constable Fairbank and learned Dr. van Heerden, that he has denied me.
+And it has come to this," he said bitterly, and leaning his head against
+the door-post he howled like a dog.
+
+"I say, stop your fooling, Beale," said the doctor angrily, "there's
+been very serious business here, and I should thank you not to
+interfere."
+
+Mr. Beale wiped imaginary tears from his eyes, grasped Mr. White's
+unwilling hand and shook it vigorously, staggered back to his flat and
+slammed the door behind him.
+
+"Do you know that man?" asked the doctor, turning to the detective.
+
+"I seem to remember his face," said the sergeant. "Come on, Fred. Good
+morning, gentlemen."
+
+They waited till the officers were downstairs and out of sight, and then
+the doctor turned to the other and in a different tone from any he had
+employed, said:
+
+"Come into my room for a moment, White," and Mr. White followed him
+obediently.
+
+They shut the door and passed into the study, with its rows of heavily
+bound books, its long table covered with test-tubes and the
+paraphernalia of medical research.
+
+"Well," said White, dropping into a chair, "what happened?"
+
+"That is what I want to know," said the doctor.
+
+He took a cigarette from a box on the table and lit it and the two men
+looked at one another without speaking.
+
+"Do you think she had the letters and hid them?"
+
+"Impossible," replied the doctor briefly.
+
+White grunted, took a cigar from a long leather case, bit off the end
+savagely and reached out his hand for a match.
+
+"'The best-laid schemes of mice and men!'" he quoted.
+
+"Oh, shut up," said the doctor savagely.
+
+He was pacing the study with long strides. He stopped at one end of the
+room staring moodily through the window, his hands thrust in his
+pockets.
+
+"I wonder what happened," he said again. "Well, that can wait. Now just
+tell me exactly how matters stand in regard to you and Punsonby's."
+
+"I have all the figures here," said Mr. White, as he thrust his hand
+into the inside pocket of his frock-coat, "I can raise L40,000 by
+debentures and--hello, what's this?"
+
+He drew from his pocket a white packet, fastened about by a rubber band.
+This he slipped off and gasped, for in his hands were three registered
+letters, and they were addressed to Messrs. Punsonby, and each had been
+slit open.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BIG HEAD
+
+
+No. 342, Lothbury, is a block of business offices somewhat unpretentious
+in their approach but of surprising depth and importance when explored.
+Oliva Cresswell stood for awhile in the great lobby, inspecting the
+names of the occupants, which were inscribed on porcelain slips in two
+big frames on each wall of the vestibule.
+
+After a lengthy search she discovered the name of the Beale Agency under
+the heading "fourth floor" and made her way to the elevator.
+
+Mr. Beale's office was at the end of a seemingly interminable corridor
+and consisted, as she was to find, of an outer and an inner chamber. The
+outer was simply furnished with a table, two chairs and a railed fence
+bisected with a little wooden gateway.
+
+A boy sat at one table, engaged in laborious exercise on a typewriter
+with one finger of one hand.
+
+He jumped up as she came through the door.
+
+"Miss Cresswell?" he asked. "Mr. Beale will see you."
+
+He opened the wicket-gate and led the way to a door marked "Private."
+
+It was Beale who opened the door in response to the knock.
+
+"Come in, Miss Cresswell," he said cheerily, "I didn't expect you for
+half an hour."
+
+"I thought I'd start well," she smiled.
+
+She had had many misgivings that morning, and had spent a restless night
+debating the wisdom of engaging herself to an employer whose known
+weakness had made his name a by-word. But a promise was a promise and,
+after all, she told herself, her promise was fulfilled when she had
+given the new work a trial.
+
+"Here is your desk," he said, indicating a large office table in the
+centre of the room, "and here is my little library. You will note that
+it mainly consists of agricultural returns and reports--do you read
+French?" She nodded. "Good, and Spanish--that's rather too much to
+expect, isn't it?"
+
+"I speak and read Spanish very well," she said. "When I was a little
+girl I lived around in Paris, Lyons, and Barcelona--my first regular
+work--the first I was paid for--was in the Anglo-Spanish Cable office in
+Barcelona."
+
+"That's lucky," he said, apparently relieved, "though I could have
+taught you the few words that it is necessary you should know to
+understand the Argentine reports. What I particularly want you to
+discover--and you will find two or three hundred local guide-books on
+that shelf at the far end of the room, and these will help you a great
+deal--is the exact locations of all the big wheat-growing districts, the
+number of hectares under cultivation in normal times, the method by
+which the wheat areas are divided--by fences, roads, etc.--the average
+size of the unbroken blocks of wheatland and, if possible, the width of
+the roads or paths which divide them."
+
+"Gracious!" she cried in dismay.
+
+"It sounds a monumental business, but I think you will find it simple.
+The Agricultural Department of the United States Government, for
+instance, tabulate all those facts. For example, they compel farmers in
+certain districts to keep a clear space between each lot so that in
+case of the crops being fired, the fire may be isolated. Canada, the
+Argentine and Australia have other methods."
+
+She had seated herself at the desk and was jotting down a note of her
+duties.
+
+"Anything more?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--I want the names of the towns in the centre of the wheat-growing
+areas, a list of the hotels in those towns. The guide-books you will
+find up to date, and these will inform you on this subject. Particularly
+do I want hotels noted where automobiles can be hired, the address of
+the local bank and the name of the manager and, where the information is
+available, the name of the chief constable, sheriff or chef
+d'gendarmerie in each district."
+
+She looked up at him, her pencil poised.
+
+"Are you serious--of course, I'll do all this, but somehow it reminds me
+of a story I once read----"
+
+"I know it," said Beale promptly, "it is 'The Case of the Red-Haired
+Man,' one of Doyle's stories about a man who, to keep him away from his
+shop, was employed on the useless task of copying the _Encyclopaedia
+Britannica_--no, I am asking you to do serious work, Miss
+Cresswell--work which I do not want spoken about."
+
+He sat on the edge of the table, looking down at her, and if his eyes
+were smiling it was because that was their natural expression. She had
+never seen them when they did not hold the ghost of some joke inwardly
+enjoyed.
+
+But her instinct told her that he was very much in earnest and that the
+task he had set her was one which had reason behind it.
+
+"Take the districts first and work up the hotels, et cetera," he
+suggested, "you will find it more interesting than a novel. Those little
+books," he pointed to the crowded shelf by the window, "will carry you
+to stations and ranches and farms all over the world. You shall be
+wafted through Manitoba, and cross the United States from New England to
+California. You will know Sydney and Melbourne and the great cornland at
+the back of beyond. And you'll sit in cool patios and sip iced drinks
+with Senor Don Perfecto de Cuba who has ridden in from his rancio to
+inquire the price of May wheat, or maybe you'll just amble through India
+on an elephant, sleeping in bungalows, listening to the howling of
+tigers, mosquitoes----"
+
+"Now I know you're laughing at me," she smiled.
+
+"Not altogether," he said quietly; then: "Is there any question you'd
+like to ask me? By the way, the key of the office is in the right-hand
+drawer; go to lunch when you like and stay away as long as you like.
+Your cheque will be paid you every Friday morning."
+
+"But where----?" She looked round the room. "Where do you work?"
+
+"I don't work," he said promptly, "you do the work and I get the honour
+and glory. When I come in I will sit on the edge of your desk, which is
+not graceful but it is very comfortable. There is one question I meant
+to ask you. You said you were in a cable office--do you add to your
+accomplishments a working knowledge of the Morse Code?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I can see you being useful. If you need me"--he jerked his head toward
+a telephone on a small table--"call 8761 Gerrard."
+
+"And where is that?" she asked.
+
+"If I thought you were anything but a very sane young lady, I should
+tell you that it is the number of my favourite bar," he said gravely. "I
+will not, however, practise that harmless deception upon you."
+
+Again she saw the dancing light of mischief in his eyes.
+
+"You're a queer man," she said, "and I will not make myself ridiculous
+by speaking to you for your good."
+
+She heard his soft laughter as the door closed behind him and, gathering
+an armful of the guide-books, she settled down for a morning's work
+which proved even more fascinating than his fanciful pictures had
+suggested. She found herself wondering to what use all this information
+she extracted could be put. Was Mr. Beale really a buyer or was he
+interested in the sale of agricultural machinery? Why should he want to
+know that Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of Scobbs' Hotel and General
+Emporium in the town of Red Horse Valley, Alberta, and what
+significance attached to the fact that he had an automobile for hire or
+that he ran a coach every Wednesday to Regina?
+
+Then she fell to speculating upon the identity and appearance of this
+man who bore this weird name of Scobbs. She pictured him an elderly man
+with chin whiskers who wore his pants thrust into top-boots. And why was
+Red Horse Valley so called? These unexpected and, to her, hitherto
+unknown names of places and people set in train most interesting
+processions of thought that slid through the noisy jangle of traffic,
+and coloured the drab walls of all that was visible of the City of
+London through the window with the white lights and purple shadows of
+dream prairies.
+
+When she looked at her watch--being impelled to that act by the
+indescribable sensation of hunger--she was amazed to discover that it
+was three o'clock.
+
+She jumped up and went to the outer office in search of the boy who, she
+faintly remembered, had erupted into her presence hours before with a
+request which she had granted without properly hearing. He was not in
+evidence. Evidently his petition had also been associated with the
+gnawing pangs which assail boyhood at one o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+She was turning back to her office, undecided as to whether she should
+remain until his return or close the office entirely, when the shuffle
+of feet brought her round.
+
+The outer office was partitioned from the entrance by a long "fence,"
+the farther end of which was hidden by a screen of wood and frosted
+glass. It was from behind that screen that the noise came and she
+remembered that she had noted a chair there--evidently a place where
+callers waited.
+
+"Who is there?" she asked.
+
+There was a creak as the visitor rose.
+
+"Eggscuse, mattam," said a wheezy voice, "I gall to eng-vire for Mister
+Peale, isn't it?"
+
+He shuffled forward into view, a small man with a dead white face and a
+head of monstrous size.
+
+She was bereft of speech and could only look at him, for this was the
+man she had found in her rooms the night before her dismissal--the man
+who carried the Green Rust.
+
+Evidently he did not recognize her.
+
+"Mister Peale, he tolt me, I must gall him mit der telephone, but der
+nomber she vas gone oudt of mine head!"
+
+He blinked at her with his short-sighted eyes and laid a big hairy hand
+on the gate.
+
+"You must--you mustn't come in," she said breathlessly. "I will call Mr.
+Beale--sit--sit down again."
+
+"Sch," he said obediently, and shuffled back to his chair, "dell him der
+Herr Brofessor it was."
+
+The girl took up the telephone receiver with a shaking hand and gave the
+number. It was Beale's voice that answered her.
+
+"There's a man here," she said hurriedly, "a--a--the man--who was in my
+room--the Herr Professor."
+
+She heard his exclamation of annoyance.
+
+"I'm sorry," and if she could judge by the inflection of his voice his
+sorrow was genuine. "I'll be with you in ten minutes--he's quite a
+harmless old gentleman----"
+
+"Hurry, please."
+
+She heard the "click" of his receiver and replaced her own slowly. She
+did not attempt to go back to the outer office, but waited by the closed
+door. She recalled the night, the terror of that unknown presence in her
+darkened flat, and shuddered. Then Beale, surprisingly sober, had come
+in and he and the "burglar" had gone away together.
+
+What had these two, Mr. Beale and the "Herr Professor," in common? She
+heard the snap of the outer door, and Beale's voice speaking quickly. It
+was probably German--she had never acquired the language and hardly
+recognized it, though the guttural "Zu befel, Herr Peale" was distinct.
+
+She heard the shuffle of the man's feet and the closing of the outer
+door and then Beale came in, and his face was troubled.
+
+"I can't tell you how sorry I am that the old man called--I'd forgotten
+that he was likely to come."
+
+She leant against the table, both hands behind her.
+
+"Mr. Beale," she said, "will you give me straightforward answers to a
+number of plain questions?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"If I can," he said.
+
+"Is the Herr Professor a friend of yours?"
+
+"No--I know him and in a way I am sorry for him. He is a German who
+pretends to be Russian. Immensely poor and unprepossessing to a painful
+degree, but a very clever scientist. In fact, a truly great analytical
+chemist who ought to be holding a good position. He told me that he had
+the best qualifications, and I quite believe him, but that his physical
+infirmities, his very freakishness had ruined him."
+
+Her eyes softened with pity--the pity of the strong for the weak, of the
+beautiful for the hideous.
+
+"If that is true----" she began, and his chin went up. "I beg your
+pardon, I know it is true. It is tragic, but--did you know him before
+you met him in my room?"
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"I knew him both by repute and by sight," he said. "I knew the work he
+was engaged on and I guessed why he was engaged. But I had never spoken
+to him."
+
+"Thank you--now for question number two. You needn't answer unless you
+wish."
+
+"I shan't," he said.
+
+"That's frank, anyway. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, what is all this mystery
+about? What is the Green Rust? Why do you pretend to be a--a drunkard
+when you're not one?" (It needed some boldness to say this, and she
+flushed with the effort to shape the sentence.) "Why are you always
+around so providentially when you're needed, and," here she smiled (as
+he thought) deliciously, "why weren't you round yesterday, when I was
+nearly arrested for theft?"
+
+He was back on the edge of the table, evidently his favourite
+resting-place, she thought, and he ticked her questions off on his
+fingers.
+
+"Question number one cannot be answered. Question number two, why do I
+pretend to be a--a drunkard?" he mimicked her audaciously. "There are
+other things which intoxicate a man beside love and beer, Miss
+Cresswell."
+
+"How gross!" she protested. "What are they?"
+
+"Work, the chase, scientific research and the first spring scent of the
+hawthorn," he said solemnly. "As to the third question, why was I not
+around when you were nearly arrested? Well, I was around. I was in your
+flat when you came in and escaped along the fire parapet."
+
+"Mr. Beale!" she gasped. "Then it was you--you are a detective!"
+
+"I turned your desk and dressing-chest upside down? Yes, it was I," he
+said without shame, ignoring the latter part of the sentence. "I was
+looking for something."
+
+"You were looking for something?" she repeated. "What were you looking
+for?"
+
+"Three registered envelopes which were planted in your flat yesterday
+morning," he said, "and what's more I found 'em!"
+
+She put her hand to her forehead in bewilderment.
+
+"Then you----"
+
+"Saved you from a cold, cold prison cell. Have you had any lunch? Why,
+you're starving!"
+
+"But----"
+
+"Bread and butter is what you want," said the practical Mr. Beale, "with
+a large crisp slice of chicken and stacks of various vegetables."
+
+And he hustled her from the office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MR. SCOBBS OF RED HORSE VALLEY
+
+
+Mr. White, managing director of Punsonby's Store, was a man of simple
+tastes. He had a horror of extravagance and it was his boast that he had
+never ridden in a taxi-cab save as the guest of some other person who
+paid. He travelled by tube or omnibus from the Bayswater Road, where he
+lived what he described as his private life. He lunched in the staff
+dining-room, punctiliously paying his bill; he dined at home in solitary
+state, for he had neither chick nor child, heir or wife. Once an elder
+sister had lived with him and had died (according to the popularly
+accepted idea) of slow starvation, for he was a frugal man.
+
+It seems the fate of apparently rich and frugal men that they either die
+and leave their hoardings to the State or else they disappear, leaving
+behind them monumental debts. The latter have apparently no vices; even
+the harassed accountant who disentangles their estates cannot discover
+the channel through which their hundreds of thousands have poured. The
+money has gone and, if astute detectives bring back the defaulter from
+the pleasant life which the Southern American cities offer to rich
+idlers, he is hopelessly vague as to the method by which it went.
+
+Mr. Lassimus White was the managing director and general manager of
+Punsonby's. He held, or was supposed to hold, a third of the shares in
+that concern, shares which he had inherited from John Punsonby, his
+uncle, and the founder of the firm. He drew a princely salary and a
+substantial dividend, he was listed as a debenture holder and was
+accounted a rich man.
+
+But Mr. White was not rich. His salary and his dividends were absorbed
+by a mysterious agency which called itself the Union Jack Investment and
+Mortgage Corporation, which paid premiums on Mr. White's heavy life
+insurance and collected the whole or nearly the whole of his income. His
+secret, well guarded as it was, need be no secret to the reader. Mr.
+White, who had never touched a playing-card in his life and who grew
+apoplectic at the sin and shame of playing the races, was an inveterate
+gambler. His passion was for Sunken Treasure Syndicates, formed to
+recover golden ingots from ships of the Spanish Armada; for companies
+that set forth to harness the horse-power of the sea to the services of
+commerce; for optimistic companies that discovered radium mines in the
+Ural Mountains--anything which promised a steady three hundred per cent.
+per annum on an initial investment had an irresistible attraction for
+Mr. White, who argued that some day something would really fulfil
+expectations and his losses would be recovered.
+
+In the meantime he was in the hands of Moss Ibramovitch, trading as the
+Union Jack Investment and Mortgage Corporation, licensed and registered
+as a moneylender according to law. And being in the hands of this
+gentleman, was much less satisfactory and infinitely more expensive than
+being in the hands of the bankruptcy officials.
+
+In the evening of the day Oliva Cresswell had started working for her
+new employer, Mr. White stalked forth from his gloomy house and his
+departure was watched by the two tough females who kept house for him,
+with every pleasure. He strutted eastward swinging his umbrella, his
+head well back, his eyes half-closed, his massive waistcoat curving
+regally. His silk hat was pushed back from his forehead and the
+pince-nez he carried, but so seldom wore, swung from the cord he held
+before him in that dead-mouse manner which important men affect.
+
+He had often been mistaken for a Fellow of the Royal Society, so learned
+and detached was his bearing. Yet no speculation upon the origin of
+species or the function of the nebulae filled his mind.
+
+At a moment of great stress and distraction, Dr. van Heerden had arisen
+above his horizon, and there was something in Dr. van Heerden's manner
+which inspired confidence and respect. They had met by accident at a
+meeting held to liquidate the Shining Strand Alluvial Gold Mining
+Company--a concern which had started forth in the happiest circumstances
+to extract the fabulous riches which had been discovered by an American
+philanthropist (he is now selling Real Estate by correspondence) on a
+Southern Pacific island.
+
+Van Heerden was not a shareholder, but he was intensely interested in
+the kind of people who subscribe for shares in Dreamland Gold mines. Mr.
+White had attended incognito--his shares were held in the name of his
+lawyer, who was thinking seriously of building an annex to hold the
+unprofitable scrip.
+
+Mr. White was gratified to discover a kindred soul who believed in this
+kind of speculation.
+
+It was to the doctor's apartment that he was now walking. That gentleman
+met him in the entrance and accompanied him to his room. There was a
+light in the fanlight of Oliva's flat, for she had brought some of her
+work home to finish, but Mr. Beale's flat was dark.
+
+This the doctor noted before he closed his own door, and switched on the
+light.
+
+"Well, White, have you made up your mind?" he demanded without
+preliminary.
+
+"I--ah--have and I--ah--have not," said the cautious adventurer. "Forty
+thousand is a lot of money--a fortune, one might say--yes, a fortune."
+
+"Have you raised it?"
+
+Mr. White sniffed his objection to this direct examination.
+
+"My broker has very kindly realized the debentures--I am--ah--somewhat
+indebted to him, and it was necessary to secure his permission and--yes,
+I have the money at my bank."
+
+He gazed benignly at the other, as one who conferred a favour by the
+mere bestowal of his confidences.
+
+"First, doctor--forgive me if I am a little cautious; first I say, it is
+necessary that I should know a little more about your remarkable scheme,
+for remarkable I am sure it is."
+
+The doctor poured out a whisky and soda and passed the glass to his
+visitor, who smilingly waved it aside.
+
+"Wine is a mocker," he said, "nothing stronger than cider has ever
+passed my lips--pray do not be offended."
+
+"And yet I seem to remember that you held shares in the Northern Saloon
+Trust," said the doctor, with a little curl of his bearded lips.
+
+"That," said Mr. White hastily, "was a purely commercial--ah--affair. In
+business one must exploit even the--ah--sins and weaknesses of our
+fellows."
+
+"As to my scheme," said the doctor, changing the subject, "I'm afraid I
+must ask you to invest in the dark. I can promise you that you will get
+your capital back a hundred times over. I realize that you have heard
+that sort of thing before, and that my suggestion has all the appearance
+of a confidence trick, except that I do not offer you even the
+substantial security of a gold brick. I may not use your money--I
+believe that I shall not. On the other hand, I may. If it is to be of
+any use to me it must be in my hands very soon--to-morrow."
+
+He wandered restlessly about the room as he spoke, and jerked his
+sentences out now to Mr. White's face, now over his shoulder.
+
+"I will tell you this," he went on, "my scheme within the narrow
+interpretation of the law is illegal--don't mistake me, there is no
+danger to those who invest in ignorance. I will bear the full burden of
+responsibility. You can come in or you can stay out, but if you come in
+I shall ask you never to mention the name of the enterprise to a living
+soul."
+
+"The Green Rust Syndicate?" whispered Mr. White fearfully. "What--ah--is
+Green Rust?"
+
+"I have offered the scheme to my--to a Government. But they are scared
+of touching it. Scared, by Jove!" He threw up his arms to the ceiling
+and his voice trembled with passion. "Germany scared! And there was a
+time when Europe cringed at the clank of the Prussian sword! When the
+lightest word of Potsdam set ministries trembling in Petrograd and
+London. You told me the other day you were a pacifist during the war and
+that you sympathized with Prussia in her humiliation. I am a Prussian,
+why should I deny it? I glory in the religion of might--I believe it
+were better that the old civilization were stamped into the mud of
+oblivion than that Prussian Kultur should be swept away by the
+licentious French, the mercenary English----"
+
+"British," murmured Mr. White.
+
+"And the dollar-hunting Yankees--but I'm making a fool of myself."
+
+With an effort he regained his calm.
+
+"The war's over and done with. As I say, I offered my Government my
+secret. They thought it good but could not help me. They were afraid
+that the League would come to learn they were supporting it. They'll
+help me in other ways--innocent ways. If this scheme goes through they
+will put the full resources of the State at my disposal."
+
+Mr. White rose, groped for his hat and cleared his throat.
+
+"Dr.--ah--van Heerden, you may be sure that I shall--ah--respect your
+confidence. With your very natural indignation I am in complete
+sympathy.
+
+"But let us forget, ah--that you have spoken at all about the scheme in
+any detail--especially in so far as to its legality or otherwise. Let us
+forget, sir "--Mr. White thrust his hand into the bosom of his coat, an
+attitude he associated with the subtle rhetoric of statesmanship. "Let
+us forget all, save this, that you invite me to subscribe L40,000 to a
+syndicate for--ah--let us say model dwellings for the working classes,
+and that I am willing to subscribe, and in proof of my willingness will
+send you by the night's post a cheque for that amount. Good night,
+doctor."
+
+He shook hands, pulled his hat down upon his head, opened the door and
+ran into the arms of a man whose hand was at that moment raised to press
+the electric bell-push by the side of the door.
+
+Both started back.
+
+"Excuse me," mumbled Mr. White, and hurried down the stairs.
+
+Dr. van Heerden glared at the visitor, white with rage.
+
+"Come in, you fool!" he hissed, and half-dragged the man into his room,
+"what made you leave Scotland?"
+
+"Scotland I hate!" said the visitor huskily. "Sticking a fellow away in
+the wilds of the beastly mountains, eh? That's not playing the game, my
+cheery sportsman."
+
+"When did you arrive?" asked van Heerden quickly.
+
+"Seven p.m. Travelled third class! Me! Is it not the most absurd
+position for a man of my parts--third class, with foul and common
+people--I'd like to rip them all up--I would, by heavens!"
+
+The doctor surveyed the coarse, drink-bloated face, the loose, weak
+mouth, half-smiled at the vanity of the dangling monocle and pointed to
+the decanter.
+
+"You did wrong to come," he said, "I have arranged your passage to
+Canada next week."
+
+"I'll not go!" said the man, tossing down a drink and wiping his lips
+with a not over-clean handkerchief. "Curse me, van Heerden, why should I
+hide and fly like a--a----"
+
+"Like a man who escaped from Cayenne," suggested the doctor, "or like a
+man who is wanted by the police of three countries for crimes ranging
+from arson to wilful murder."
+
+The man shuddered.
+
+"All fair fights, my dear fellow," he said more mildly, "if I hadn't
+been a boastful, drunken sot, you wouldn't have heard of 'em--you
+wouldn't, curse you. I was mad! I had you in my hand like that!" He
+closed a not over-clean fist under van Heerden's nose. "I saw it all,
+all, I saw you bullying the poor devil, shaking some secret out of him,
+I saw you knife him----"
+
+"Hush!" hissed van Heerden. "You fool--people can hear through these
+walls."
+
+"But there are no windows to see through," leered the man, "and I _saw_!
+He came out of his death-trance to denounce you, by Jove! I heard him
+shout and I saw you run in and lay him down--lay him down! Lay him out
+is better! You killed him to shut his mouth, my bonnie doctor!"
+
+Van Heerden's face was as white as a sheet, but the hand he raised to
+his lips was without a tremor.
+
+"You were lucky to find me that night, dear lad," the man went on. "I
+was in a mind to split on you."
+
+"You have no cause to regret my finding you, Jackson," said the doctor.
+"I suppose you still call yourself by that name?"
+
+"Yes, Jackson," said the other promptly. "Jack--son, son of Jack. Fine
+name, eh--good enough for me and good enough for anybody else. Yes, you
+found me and done me well. I wish you hadn't. How I wish you hadn't."
+
+"Ungrateful fool!" said van Heerden. "I probably saved your life--hid
+you in Eastbourne, took you to London, whilst the police were searching
+for you."
+
+"For me!" snarled the other. "A low trick, by the Everlasting
+Virtues----!"
+
+"Don't be an idiot--whose word would they have taken, yours or mine? Now
+let's talk--on Thursday next you sail for Quebec...."
+
+He detailed his instructions at length and the man called Jackson,
+mellowed by repeated visits to the decanter, listened and even approved.
+
+On the other side of the hallway, behind the closed door, Oliva
+Cresswell, her dining-table covered with papers and books, was working
+hard.
+
+She was particularly anxious to show Mr. Beale a sample of her work in
+the morning and was making a fair copy of what she had described to him
+that afternoon as her "hotel list."
+
+"They are such queer names," she said; "there is one called Scobbs of
+Red Horse Valley--Scobbs!"
+
+He had laughed.
+
+"Strangely enough, I know Mr. Scobbs, who is quite a personage in that
+part of the world. He owns a chain of hotels in Western Canada. You
+mustn't leave him out."
+
+Even had she wished to, or even had the name been overlooked once, she
+could not have escaped it. For Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of
+Scobbs' Hotel in Falling Star City; of the Bellevue in Snakefence, of
+the Palace Hotel in Portage.
+
+After awhile it began to lose its novelty and she accepted the discovery
+of unsuspected properties of Mr. Scobbs as inevitable.
+
+She filled in the last ruled sheet and blotted it, gathered the sheets
+together and fastened them with a clip.
+
+She yawned as she rose and realized that her previous night's sleep had
+been fitful.
+
+She wondered as she began to undress if she would dream of Scobbs
+or--no, she didn't want to dream of big-headed men with white faces, and
+the thought awoke a doubt in her mind. Had she bolted the door of the
+flat? She went along the passage in her stockinged feet, shot the bolts
+smoothly and was aware of voices outside. They came to her clearly
+through the ventilator above the fanlight.
+
+She heard the doctor say something and then a voice which she had not
+heard before.
+
+"Don't worry--I've a wonderful memory, by Jove!..."
+
+The murmur of the doctor did not reach her, but----
+
+"Yes, yes ... Scobbs' Hotel, Red Horse Valley ... know the place well
+... good night, dear old thing...."
+
+A door banged, an uncertain footstep died away in the well of the stairs
+below, and she was left to recover from her amazement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PLAIN WORDS FROM MR. BEALE
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell did not feel at all sleepy, so she discovered, by the
+time she was ready for bed. To retire in that condition of wakefulness
+meant another sleepless night, and she slipped a kimono over her, found
+a book and settled into the big wicker-chair under the light for the
+half-hour's reading which would reduce her to the necessary state of
+drowsiness. The book at any other time would have held her attention,
+but now she found her thoughts wandering. On the other side of the wall
+(she regarded it with a new interest) was the young man who had so
+strangely intruded himself into her life. Or was he out? What would a
+man like that do with his evenings? He was not the sort of person who
+could find any pleasure in making a round of music-halls or sitting up
+half the night in a card-room.
+
+She heard a dull knock, and it came from the wall.
+
+Mr. Beale was at home then, he had pushed a chair against the wall, or
+he was knocking in nails at this hour of the night.
+
+"Thud--thud--thud"--a pause--"thud, tap, thud, tap."
+
+The dull sound was as if made by a fist, the tap by a finger-tip.
+
+It was repeated.
+
+Suddenly the girl jumped up with a little laugh. He was signalling to
+her and had sent "O.C."--her initials.
+
+She tapped three times with her finger, struck once with the flat of her
+hand and tapped again. She had sent the "Understood" message.
+
+Presently he began and she jotted the message on the margin of her book.
+
+"Most urgent: Don't use soap. Bring it to office."
+
+She smiled faintly. She expected something more brilliant in the way of
+humour even from Mr. Beale. She tapped "acknowledged" and went to bed.
+
+"Matilda, my innocent child," she said to herself, as she snuggled up
+under the bed-clothes, "exchanging midnight signals with a lodger is
+neither proper nor lady-like."
+
+She had agreed with herself that in spite of the latitude she was
+allowed in the matter of office hours, that she would put in an
+appearance punctually at ten. This meant rising not later than eight,
+for she had her little household to put in order before she left.
+
+It was the postman's insistent knocking at eight-thirty that woke her
+from a dreamless sleep, and, half-awake, she dragged herself into her
+dressing-gown and went to the door.
+
+"Parcel, miss," said the invisible official, and put into the hand that
+came round the edge of the door a letter and a small package. She
+brought them to the sitting-room and pulled back the curtains. The
+letter was type-written and was on the note-paper of a well-known firm
+of perfumers. It was addressed to "Miss Olivia Cresswell," and ran:
+
+
+     "DEAR MADAME,--
+
+     "We have pleasure in sending you for your use a sample cake of our
+     new Complexion Soap, which we trust will meet with your approval."
+
+
+"But how nice," she said, and wondered why she had been singled out for
+the favour. She opened the package. In a small carton, carefully wrapped
+in the thinnest of paper, was an oval tablet of lavender-coloured soap
+that exhaled a delicate fragrance.
+
+"But how nice," she said again, and put the gift in the bath-room.
+
+This was starting the day well--a small enough foundation for happiness,
+yet one which every woman knows, for happiness is made up of small and
+acceptable things and, given the psychological moment, a bunch of
+primroses has a greater value than a rope of pearls.
+
+In her bath she picked up the soap and dropped it back in the tidy again
+quickly.
+
+"Don't use soap; bring it to office."
+
+She remembered the message in a flash. Beale had known that this parcel
+was coming then, and his "most urgent" warning was not a joke. She
+dressed quickly, made a poor breakfast and was at the office ten minutes
+before the hour.
+
+She found her employer waiting, sitting in his accustomed place on the
+edge of the table in her office. He gave her a little nod of welcome,
+and without a word stretched out his hand.
+
+"The soap?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+She opened her bag.
+
+"Good," he said. "I see you have kept the wrappings, and that, I
+presume, is the letter which accompanied the--what shall I say--gift?
+Don't touch it with your bare hand," he said quickly. "Handle it with
+the paper."
+
+He pulled his gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then took the
+cake of soap in his hand and carried it to the light, smelt it and
+returned it to its paper.
+
+"Now let me see the letter."
+
+She handed it to him, and he read it.
+
+"From Brandan, the perfumers. They wouldn't be in it, but we had better
+make sure."
+
+He walked to the telephone and gave a number, and the girl heard him
+speaking in a low tone to somebody at the other end. Presently he put
+down the receiver and walked back, his hands thrust into his pockets.
+
+"They know nothing about this act of generosity," he said.
+
+By this time she had removed her coat and hat and hung them up, and had
+taken her place at her desk. She sat with her elbows on the
+blotting-pad, her chin on her clasped hands, looking up at him.
+
+"I don't think it's fair that things should be kept from me any longer,"
+she said. "Many mysterious things have happened in the past few days,
+and since they have all directly affected me, I think I am entitled to
+some sort of explanation."
+
+"I think you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but
+I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell
+you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would
+have been covered from head to foot in a rather alarming and irritating
+rash."
+
+She gasped.
+
+"But who dared to send me this?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Who knows? But first let me ask you this, Miss Cresswell. Suppose
+to-night when you had looked at yourself in the glass you had discovered
+your face was covered with red blotches and, on further examination, you
+found your arms and, indeed, the whole of your body similarly
+disfigured, what would you have done?"
+
+She thought for a moment.
+
+"Why, of course, I should have sent for the doctor."
+
+"Which doctor?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"Doctor van Heerden--oh!" She looked at him resentfully. "You don't
+suggest that Doctor van Heerden sent that hideous thing to me?"
+
+"I don't suggest anything," said Mr. Beale coolly.
+
+"I merely say that you would have sent for a doctor, and that that
+doctor would have been Doctor van Heerden. I say further, that he would
+have come to you and been very sympathetic, and would have ordered you
+to remain in bed for four or five days. I think, too," he said, looking
+up at the ceiling and speaking slowly, as though he were working out the
+possible consequence in his mind, "that he would have given you some
+very palatable medicine."
+
+"What are you insinuating?" she asked quietly.
+
+He did not reply immediately.
+
+"If you will get out of your mind the idea that I have any particular
+grievance against Doctor van Heerden, that I regard him as a rival, a
+business rival let us say, or that I have some secret grudge against
+him, and if in place of that suspicion you would believe that I am
+serving a much larger interest than is apparent to you, I think we might
+discuss"--he smiled--"even Doctor van Heerden without such a discussion
+giving offence to you."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I am really not offended. I am rather distressed, if anything," she
+said, knitting her brows. "You see, Doctor van Heerden has always been
+most kind to me."
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"He got you your rooms at the flats," he replied quietly; "he was also
+ready to give you employment the moment you were providentially
+discharged from Punsonby's. Does it not strike you, Miss Cresswell, that
+every kind act of Doctor van Heerden's has had a tendency to bring you
+together, into closer association, I mean? Does it not appear to you
+that the net result of all the things that might have happened to you in
+the past few days would have been to make you more and more dependent
+upon Doctor van Heerden? For example, if you had gone into his employ as
+he planned that you should?"
+
+"Planned!" she gasped.
+
+His face was grave now and the laughter had gone out of his eyes.
+
+"Planned," he said quietly. "You were discharged from Punsonby's at
+Doctor van Heerden's instigation."
+
+"I will not believe it!"
+
+"That will not make it any less the fact," said Mr. Beale. "You were
+nearly arrested--again at Doctor van Heerden's instigation. He was
+waiting for you when you came back from Punsonby's, ready to offer you
+his job. When he discovered you had already engaged yourself he
+telephoned to White, instructing him to have you arrested so that you
+might be disgraced and might turn to him, your one loyal friend."
+
+She listened speechless. She could only stare at him and could not even
+interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly
+that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed
+her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was at
+least probability.
+
+"I suggest even more," Beale went on. "I suggest that for some purpose,
+Doctor van Heerden desires to secure a mental, physical and moral
+ascendancy over you. In other words, he wishes to enslave you to his
+will."
+
+She looked at him in wonder and burst into a peal of ringing laughter.
+
+"Really, Mr. Beale, you are too absurd," she said.
+
+"Aren't I?" he smiled. "It sounds like something out of a melodrama."
+
+"Why on earth should he want to secure a mental ascendancy over me? Do
+you suggest----" She flushed.
+
+"I suggest nothing any longer," said Beale, slipping off from the end of
+the table. "I merely make a statement of fact. I do not think he has any
+designs on you, within the conventional meaning of that phrase, indeed,
+I think he wants to marry you--what do you think about that?"
+
+She had recovered something of her poise, and her sense of humour was
+helping her out of a situation which, without such a gift, might have
+been an embarrassing one.
+
+"I think you have been seeing too many plays and reading too many
+exciting books, Mr. Beale," she said, "I confess I have never regarded
+Doctor van Heerden as a possible suitor, and if I thought he was I
+should be immensely flattered. But may I suggest to you that there are
+other ways of winning a girl than by giving her nettle-rash!"
+
+They laughed together.
+
+"All right," he said, swinging up his hat, "proceed with the good work
+and seek out the various domiciles of Mr. Scobbs."
+
+Then she remembered.
+
+"Do you know----?"
+
+He was at the door when she spoke and he stopped and turned.
+
+"The name of Mr. Scobbs gives me a cold shiver."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Answer me this," she said: "why should I who have never heard of him
+before until yesterday hear his name mentioned by a perfect stranger?"
+
+The smile died away from his face.
+
+"Who mentioned him! No, it isn't idle curiosity," he said in face of her
+derisive finger. "I am really serious. Who mentioned his name?"
+
+"A visitor of Doctor van Heerden's. I heard them talking through the
+ventilator when I was bolting my door."
+
+"A visitor to Doctor van Heerden, and he mentioned Mr. Scobbs of Red
+Horse Valley," he said half to himself. "You didn't see the man?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You just heard him. No names were mentioned?"
+
+"None," she said. "Is it a frightfully important matter?"
+
+"It is rather," he replied. "We have got to get busy," and with this
+cryptic remark he left her.
+
+The day passed as quickly as its predecessor. The tabulation at which
+she was working grew until by the evening there was a pile of sheets in
+the left-hand cupboard covered with her fine writing. She might have
+done more but for the search she had to make for a missing report to
+verify one of her facts. It was not on the shelf, and she was about to
+abandon her search and postpone the confirmation till she saw Beale,
+when she noticed a cupboard beneath the shelves. It was unlocked and she
+opened it and found, as she had expected, that it was full of books,
+amongst which was the missing documentation she sought.
+
+With a view to future contingencies, she examined the contents of the
+cupboard and was arrested by a thin volume which bore no inscription or
+title on its blank cover. She opened it, and on the title page read:
+"The Millinborn Murder." The author's name was not given and the
+contents were made up of very careful analysis of evidence given by the
+various witnesses at the inquest, and plans and diagrams with little red
+crosses to show where every actor in that tragedy had been.
+
+She read the first page idly and turned it. She was half-way down the
+second page when she uttered a little exclamation, for a familiar name
+was there, the name of Dr. van Heerden.
+
+Fascinated, she read the story to the end, half-expecting that the name
+of Mr. Beale would occur.
+
+There were many names all unknown to her and one that occurred with the
+greatest frequency was that of James Kitson. Mr. Beale did not appear to
+have played any part. She read for an hour, sitting on the floor by the
+cupboard. She reached the last page, closed the book and slipped it back
+in the cupboard. She wondered why Beale had preserved this record and
+whether his antagonism to the doctor was founded on that case. At first
+she thought she identified him with the mysterious man who had appeared
+in the plantation before the murder, but a glance back at the
+description of the stranger dispelled that idea. For all the reputation
+he had, Mr. Beale did not have "an inflamed, swollen countenance,
+colourless bloodshot eyes," nor was he bald.
+
+She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed her work to be
+interrupted, and in penance decided to remain on until six instead of
+five o'clock as she had intended. Besides, she half expected that Mr.
+Beale would return, and was surprised to discover that she was
+disappointed that he had not.
+
+At six o'clock she dismissed the boy, closed and locked the office, and
+made her way downstairs into the crowded street.
+
+To her surprise she heard her name spoken, and turned to face Dr. van
+Heerden.
+
+"I have been waiting for you for nearly an hour," he said with
+good-humoured reproach.
+
+"And your patients are probably dying like flies," she countered.
+
+It was in her mind to make some excuse and go home alone, but curiosity
+got the better of her and impelled her to wait to discover the object of
+this unexpected visitation.
+
+"How did you know where I was working?" she asked, as the thought
+occurred to her.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"It was a very simple matter. I was on my way to a patient and I saw you
+coming out to lunch," he said, "and as I found myself in the
+neighbourhood an hour ago I thought I would wait and take you home. You
+are doing a very foolish thing," he added.
+
+"What do you mean--in stopping to talk to you when I ought to be on my
+way home to tea?"
+
+"No, in engaging yourself to a man like Beale. You know the reputation
+he has! My dear girl, I was shocked when I discovered who your employer
+was."
+
+"I don't think you need distress yourself on my account, doctor," she
+said quietly. "Really, Mr. Beale is quite pleasant--in his lucid
+moments," she smiled to herself.
+
+She was not being disloyal to her employer. If he chose to encourage
+suspicion in his mode of life he must abide by the consequences.
+
+"But a drunkard, faugh!" The exquisite doctor shivered. "I have always
+tried to be a friend of yours, Miss Cresswell, and I hope you are going
+to let me continue to be, and my advice to you in that capacity is--give
+Mr. Beale notice."
+
+"How absurd you are!" she laughed. "There is no reason in the world why
+I should do anything of the sort. Mr. Beale has treated me with the
+greatest consideration."
+
+"What is he, by the way?" asked the doctor.
+
+"He's an agent of some sort," said the girl, "but I am sure you don't
+want me to discuss his business. And now I must go, doctor, if you will
+excuse me."
+
+"One moment," he begged. "I have a cab here. Won't you come and have
+tea somewhere?"
+
+"Where is somewhere?" she asked.
+
+"The Grand Alliance?" he suggested.
+
+She nodded slowly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE
+
+
+The hotel and the cafe of the Grand Alliance was London's newest
+rendezvous. Its great palm-court was crowded at the tea-hour and if, as
+the mysterious Mr. Beale had hinted, any danger was to be apprehended
+from Dr. van Heerden, it could not come to her in that most open of
+public places.
+
+She had no fear, but that eighth sense of armed caution, which is the
+possession of every girl who has to work for her living and is conscious
+of the perils which await her on every side, reviewed with lightning
+speed all the possibilities and gave her the passport of approval.
+
+It was later than she had thought. Only a few tables were occupied, but
+he had evidently reserved one, for immediately on his appearance the
+waiter with a smirk led him to one of the alcoves and pulled back a
+chair for the girl. She looked round as she stripped her gloves. The
+place was not unfamiliar to her. It was here she came at rare intervals,
+when her finances admitted of such an hilarious recreation, to find
+comfort for jangled nerves, to sit and sip her tea to the sound of
+violins and watch the happy crowd at her leisure, absorbing something of
+the happiness they diffused.
+
+The palm-court was a spacious marble hall, a big circle of polished
+pillars supporting the dome, through the tinted glass of which the light
+was filtered in soft hues upon the marble floor below.
+
+"Doctor," she said, suddenly remembering, "I have been reading quite a
+lot about you to-day."
+
+He raised his eyebrows.
+
+"About me?"
+
+She nodded, smiling mischievously.
+
+"I didn't know that you were such a famous person--I have been reading
+about the Millinborn murder."
+
+"You have been reading about the Millinborn murder?" he said steadily,
+looking into her eyes. "An unpleasant case and one I should like to
+forget."
+
+"I thought it was awfully thrilling," she said. "It read like a
+detective story without a satisfactory end."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"What a perfectly gruesome subject for tea-table talk," he said lightly,
+and beckoned the head-waiter. "You are keeping us waiting, Jaques."
+
+"Doctor, it will be but a few minutes," pleaded the waiter, and then in
+a low voice, which was not so low that it did not reach the girl. "We
+have had some trouble this afternoon, doctor, with your friend."
+
+"My friend?"
+
+The doctor looked up sharply.
+
+"Whom do you mean?"
+
+"With Mr. Jackson."
+
+"Jackson," said the doctor, startled. "I thought he had left."
+
+"He was to leave this morning by the ten o'clock train, but he had a
+fainting-fit. We recovered him with brandy and he was too well, for this
+afternoon he faint again."
+
+"Where is he now?" asked van Heerden, after a pause.
+
+"In his room, monsieur. To-night he leave for Ireland--this he tell
+me--to catch the mail steamer at Queenstown."
+
+"Don't let him know I am here," said the doctor.
+
+He turned to the girl with a shrug.
+
+"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he
+said.
+
+"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he
+faints."
+
+"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these little attacks are
+not serious--he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of
+over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."
+
+She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So
+that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to
+Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her
+information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have
+mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.
+
+Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it
+off.
+
+"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"
+
+"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I
+know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now,
+I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"--he leant across the table and
+spoke in a lower tone--"something that I have never told to a human
+being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that
+Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in
+this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."
+
+"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.
+
+"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you
+have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson
+when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the
+heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by
+this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw
+anything, but later he may change his tune."
+
+A light dawned upon her.
+
+"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"
+
+"Exactly," said the doctor.
+
+"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police
+searching for Jackson?"
+
+"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should
+find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am
+sending Mr. Jackson to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of
+mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."
+
+He met her eyes unfalteringly.
+
+"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red
+Horse Valley."
+
+He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment
+was inarticulate.
+
+"What--what do you know?" he asked incoherently.
+
+His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at
+the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had
+created.
+
+"I only know that I heard Mr. Jackson through the ventilator of my flat,
+saying good-bye to you the other night. He mentioned Red Horse
+Valley----"
+
+He drew a deep breath and was master of himself again, but his face was
+still pale.
+
+"Oh, that," he said, "that is a polite fiction. Jackson knows of this
+inebriates' home in Ontario and I had to provide him with a destination.
+He will go no farther than----"
+
+"Why, curse my life, if it isn't the doctor!"
+
+At the sound of the raucous voice both looked up. The man called Jackson
+had hailed them from the centre of the hall. He was well dressed, but no
+tailor could compensate for the repulsiveness of that puckered and
+swollen face, those malignant eyes which peered out into the world
+through two slits. He was wearing his loud-check suit, his new hat was
+in his hand and the conical-shaped dome of his head glistened baldly.
+
+"I'm cursed if this isn't amiable of you, doctor!"
+
+He did not look at the girl, but grinned complacently upon her angry
+companion.
+
+"Here I am "--he threw out his arms with an extravagant
+gesture--"leaving the country of my adoption, if not birth, without one
+solitary soul to see me off or take farewell of me. I, who have
+been--well, you know, what I've been, van Heerden. The world has treated
+me very badly. By heaven! I'd like to come back a billionaire and ruin
+all of 'em. I'd like to cut their throats and amputate 'em limb from
+limb, I would like----"
+
+"Be silent!" said van Heerden angrily. "Have you no decency? Do you not
+realize I am with a lady?"
+
+"Pardon." The man called Jackson leapt up from the chair into which he
+had fallen and bowed extravagantly in the direction of the girl. "I
+cannot see your face because of your hat, my dear lady," he said
+gallantly, "but I am sure my friend van Heerden, whose taste----"
+
+"Will you be quiet?" said van Heerden. "Go to your room and I will come
+up to you."
+
+"Go to my room!" scoffed the other. "By Jove! I like that! That any
+whipper-snapper of a sawbones should tell me to go to my room. After
+what I have been, after the position I have held in society. I have had
+ambassadors' carriages at my door, my dear fellow, princes of the royal
+blood, and to be told to go to my room like a naughty little boy! It's
+too much!"
+
+"Then behave yourself," said van Heerden, "and at least wait until I am
+free before you approach me again."
+
+But the man showed no inclination to move; rather did this rebuff
+stimulate his power of reminiscence.
+
+"Ignore me, miss--I have not your name, but I am sure it is a noble
+one," he said. "You see before you one who in his time has been a squire
+of dames, by Jove! I can't remember 'em. They must number thousands and
+only one of them was worth two sous. Yes," he shook his head in
+melancholy, "only one of 'em. By Jove! The rest were"--he snapped his
+fingers--"that for 'em!"
+
+The girl listened against her will.
+
+"Jackson!"--and van Heerden's voice trembled with passion--"will you go
+or must I force you to go?"
+
+Jackson rose with a loud laugh.
+
+"Evidently I am _de trop_," he said with heavy sarcasm.
+
+He held out a swollen hand which van Heerden ignored.
+
+"Farewell, mademoiselle." He thrust the hand forward, so that she could
+not miss it.
+
+She took it, a cold flabby thing which sent a shudder of loathing
+through her frame, and raised her face to his for the first time.
+
+He let the hand drop. He was staring at her with open mouth and features
+distorted with horror.
+
+"You!" he croaked.
+
+She shrunk back against the wall of the alcove, but he made no movement.
+She sensed the terror and agony in his voice.
+
+"You!" he gasped. "Mary!"
+
+"Hang you! Go!" roared van Heerden, and thrust him back.
+
+But though he staggered back a pace under the weight of the other's arm,
+his eyes did not leave the girl's face, and she, fascinated by the
+appeal in the face of the wreck, could not turn hers away.
+
+"Mary!" he whispered, "what is your other name?"
+
+With an effort the girl recovered herself.
+
+"My name is not Mary," she said quietly. "My name is Oliva Cresswell."
+
+"Oliva Cresswell," he repeated. "Oliva Cresswell!"
+
+He made a movement toward her but van Heerden barred his way. She heard
+Jackson say something in a strangled voice and heard van Heerden's sharp
+"What!" and there was a fierce exchange of words.
+
+The attention of the few people in the palm-court had been attracted to
+the unusual spectacle of two men engaged in what appeared to be a
+struggle.
+
+"Sit down, sit down, you fool! Sit over there. I will come to you in a
+minute. Can you swear what you say is true?"
+
+Jackson nodded. He was shaking from head to foot.
+
+"My name is Predeaux," he said; "that is my daughter--I married in the
+name of Cresswell. My daughter," he repeated. "How wonderful!"
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked van Heerden.
+
+He had half-led, half-pushed the other to a chair near one of the
+pillars of the rotunda.
+
+"I am going to tell her," said the wreck. "What are you doing with her?"
+he demanded fiercely.
+
+"That is no business of yours," replied van Heerden sharply.
+
+"No business of mine, eh! I'll show you it's some business of mine. I am
+going to tell her all I know about you. I have been a rotter and worse
+than a rotter." The old flippancy had gone and the harsh voice was
+vibrant with purpose. "My path has been littered with the wrecks of
+human lives," he said bitterly, "and they are mostly women. I broke the
+heart of the best woman in the world, and I am going to see that you
+don't break the heart of her daughter."
+
+"Will you be quiet?" hissed van Heerden. "I will go and get her away and
+then I will come back to you."
+
+Jackson did not reply. He sat huddled up in his chair, muttering to
+himself, and van Heerden walked quickly back to the girl.
+
+"I am afraid I shall have to let you go back by yourself. He is having
+one of his fits. I think it is delirium tremens."
+
+"Don't you think you had better send for----" she began. She was going
+to say "send for a doctor," and the absurdity of the request struck her.
+
+"I think you had better go," he said hastily, with a glance at the man
+who was struggling to his feet. "I can't tell you how sorry I am that
+we've had this scene."
+
+"Stop!"--it was Jackson's voice.
+
+He stood swaying half-way between the chair he had left and the alcove,
+and his trembling finger was pointing at them.
+
+"Stop!" he said in a commanding voice. "Stop! I've got something to say
+to you. I know ... he's making you pay for the Green Rust...."
+
+So far he got when he reeled and collapsed in a heap on the floor. The
+doctor sprang forward, lifted him and carried him to the chair by the
+pillar. He picked up the overcoat that the man had been wearing and
+spread it over him.
+
+"It's a fainting-fit, nothing to be alarmed about," he said to the
+little knot of people from the tables who had gathered about the limp
+figure. "Jaques"--he called the head-waiter--"get some brandy, he must
+be kept warm."
+
+"Shall I ring for an ambulance, m'sieur?"
+
+"It is not necessary," said van Heerden. "He will recover in a few
+moments. Just leave him," and he walked back to the alcove.
+
+"Who is he?" asked the girl, and her voice was shaking in spite of
+herself.
+
+"He is a man I knew in his better days," said van Heerden, "and now I
+think you must go."
+
+"I would rather wait to see if he recovers," she said with some
+obstinacy.
+
+"I want you to go," he said earnestly; "you would please me very much if
+you would do as I ask."
+
+"There's the waiter!" she interrupted, "he has the brandy. Won't you
+give it to him?"
+
+It was the doctor who in the presence of the assembled visitors
+dissolved a white pellet in the brandy before he forced the clenched
+teeth apart and poured the liquor to the last drop down the man's
+throat.
+
+Jackson or Predeaux, to give him his real name, shuddered as he drank,
+shuddered again a few seconds later and then went suddenly limp.
+
+The doctor bent down and lifted his eyelid.
+
+"I am afraid--he is dead," he said in a low voice.
+
+"Dead!" the girl stared at him. "Oh no! Not dead!"
+
+Van Heerden nodded.
+
+"Heart failure," he said.
+
+"The same kind of heart failure that killed John Millinborn," said a
+voice behind him. "The cost of the Green Rust is totalling up, doctor."
+
+The girl swung round. Mr. Beale was standing at her elbow, but his
+steady eyes were fixed upon van Heerden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CRIME AGAINST THE WORLD
+
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Dr. van Heerden.
+
+"I merely repeat the words of the dead man," answered Beale, "heart
+failure!"
+
+He picked up from the table the leather case which the doctor had taken
+from his pocket. There were four little phials and one of these was
+uncorked.
+
+"Digitalis!" he read. "That shouldn't kill him, doctor."
+
+He looked at van Heerden thoughtfully, then picked up the phial again.
+It bore the label of a well-known firm of wholesale chemists, and the
+seal had apparently been broken for the first time when van Heerden
+opened the tiny bottle.
+
+"You have sent for the police?" Beale asked the agitated manager.
+
+"Oui, m'sieur--directly. They come now, I think."
+
+He walked to the vestibule to meet three men in plain clothes who had
+just come through the swing-doors. There was something about van
+Heerden's attitude which struck Beale as strange. He was standing in the
+exact spot he had stood when the detective had addressed him. It seemed
+as if something rooted him to the spot. He did not move even when the
+ambulance men were lifting the body nor when the police were taking
+particulars of the circumstances of the death. And Beale, escorting the
+shaken girl up the broad staircase to a room where she could rest and
+recover, looked back over his shoulder and saw him still standing, his
+head bent, his fingers smoothing his beard.
+
+"It was dreadful, dreadful," said the girl with a shiver. "I have never
+seen anybody--die. It was awful."
+
+Beale nodded. His thoughts were set on the doctor. Why had he stood so
+motionless? He was not the kind of man to be shocked by so normal a
+phenomenon as death. He was a doctor and such sights were common to him.
+What was the reason for this strange paralysis which kept him chained to
+the spot even after the body had been removed?
+
+The girl was talking, but he did not hear her. He knew instinctively
+that in van Heerden's curious attitude was a solution of Predeaux's
+death.
+
+"Excuse me a moment," he said.
+
+He passed with rapid strides from the room, down the broad stairway and
+into the palm-court.
+
+Van Heerden had gone.
+
+The explanation flashed upon him and he hurried to the spot where the
+doctor had stood.
+
+On the tessellated floor was a little patch no bigger than a saucer
+which had been recently washed.
+
+He beckoned the manager.
+
+"Who has been cleaning this tile?" he asked.
+
+The manager shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It was the doctor, sare--so eccentric! He call for a glass of water and
+he dip his handkerchief in and then lift up his foot and with rapidity
+incredible he wash the floor with his handkerchief!"
+
+"Fool!" snapped Beale. "Oh, hopeless fool!"
+
+"Sare!" said the startled manager.
+
+"It's all right, M'sieur Barri," smiled Beale ruefully. "I was
+addressing myself--oh, what a fool I've been!"
+
+He went down on his knees and examined the floor.
+
+"I want this tile, don't let anybody touch it," he said.
+
+Of course, van Heerden had stood because under his foot he had crushed
+the digitalis tablet he had taken from the phial, and for which he had
+substituted something more deadly. Had he moved, the powdered tablet
+would have been seen. It was simple--horribly simple.
+
+He walked slowly back to where he had left Oliva.
+
+What followed seemed ever after like a bad dream to the girl. She was
+stunned by the tragedy which had happened under her eyes and could offer
+no evidence which in any way assisted the police in their subsequent
+investigation, the sum of which was ably set forth in the columns of the
+_Post Record_.
+
+
+     "The tragedy which occurred in the Palm-Court of the Grand Alliance
+     Hotel yesterday must be added to the already long list of London's
+     unravelled mysteries. The deceased, a man named Jackson, has been
+     staying at the hotel for a week and was on the point of departure
+     for Canada. At the last moment Dr. van Heerden, who was assisting
+     the unfortunate man, discovered that Jackson was no other than the
+     wanted man in the Millinborn murder, a crime which most of our
+     readers will recall.
+
+     "Dr. van Heerden stated to our representative that the man had
+     represented that he was a friend of the late John Millinborn, but
+     was anxious to get to Canada. He had produced excellent
+     credentials, and Dr. van Heerden, in a spirit of generosity,
+     offered to assist him. At the eleventh hour, however, he was struck
+     with the likeness the man bore to the published description of the
+     missing man in the Millinborn case, and was on the point of
+     telegraphing to the authorities at Liverpool, when he discovered
+     that Jackson had missed the train.
+
+     "The present tragedy points to suicide. The man, it will be
+     remembered, collapsed, and Dr. van Heerden rendered first aid,
+     administering to the man a perfectly harmless drug. The post-mortem
+     examination reveals the presence in the body of a considerable
+     quantity of cyanide of potassium, and the police theory is that
+     this was self-administered before the collapse. In the man's pocket
+     was discovered a number of cyanide tablets.
+
+     "'I am satisfied,' said Dr. van Heerden, 'that the man already
+     contemplated the deed, and when I voiced my suspicions in the
+     palm-court he decided upon the action. The presence in his pocket
+     of cyanide--one of the deadliest and quickest of poisons--suggests
+     that he had the project in his mind. I did not see his action or,
+     of course, I should have stopped him!'"
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell read this account in her room two nights following the
+tragedy and was struck by certain curious inaccuracies, if all that the
+doctor had told her was true.
+
+Mr. Beale read the account, smiled across the table grimly to the
+bearded superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department.
+
+"How does that strike you for ingenuity?" he said, pushing the paper
+over the table.
+
+"I have read it," said the other laconically, "I think we have
+sufficient evidence to arrest van Heerden. The tile from the Grand
+Alliance shows traces of digitalis."
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"The case would fall," he said. "What evidence have you? We did not
+confiscate his medicine-case. He might have dropped a tablet of
+digitalis by accident. The only evidence you could convict van Heerden
+on is proof that he brought with him cyanide tablets which he slipped
+into Predeaux's pocket. No, we can prove nothing."
+
+"What is your theory in connection with the crime?"
+
+"I have many theories," said Mr. Beale, rising and pacing the room, "and
+one certainty. I am satisfied that Millinborn was killed by Doctor van
+Heerden. He was killed because, during the absence of Mr. Kitson in the
+village, the doctor forced from the dying man a secret which up till
+then he had jealously preserved. When Kitson returned he found his
+friend, as he thought, _in extremis_, and van Heerden also thought that
+John Millinborn would not speak again. To his surprise Millinborn did
+speak and van Heerden, fearful of having his villainy exposed, stabbed
+him to the heart under the pretext of assisting him to lie down.
+
+"Something different occurred at the Grand Alliance Hotel. A man swoons,
+immediately he is picked up by the doctor, who gives him a harmless
+drug--that is to say, harmless in small quantities. In five seconds the
+man is dead. At the inquest we find he has been poisoned--cyanide is
+found in his pocket. And who is this man? Obviously the identical person
+who witnessed the murder of John Millinborn and whom we have been trying
+to find ever since that crime."
+
+"Van Heerden won't escape the third time. His presence will be a little
+more than a coincidence," said the superintendent.
+
+Beale laughed.
+
+"There will be no third time," he said shortly, "van Heerden is not a
+fool."
+
+"Have you any idea what the secret was that he wanted to get from old
+Millinborn?" asked the detective.
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"Yes, I know pretty well," he said, "and in course of time you will
+know, too."
+
+The detective was glancing over the newspaper account.
+
+"I see the jury returned a verdict of 'Suicide whilst of unsound mind!'"
+he said. "This case ought to injure van Heerden, anyway."
+
+"That is where you are wrong," said Beale, stopping in his stride, "van
+Heerden has so manoeuvred the Pressmen that he comes out with an
+enhanced reputation. You will probably find articles in the weekly
+papers written and signed by him, giving his views on the indiscriminate
+sale of poisons. He will move in a glamour of romance, and his
+consulting-rooms will be thronged by new admirers."
+
+"It's a rum case," said the superintendent, rising, "and if you don't
+mind my saying so, Mr. Beale, you're one of the rummiest men that figure
+in it. I can't quite make you out. You are not a policeman and yet we
+have orders from the Foreign Office to give you every assistance. What's
+the game?"
+
+"The biggest game in the world," said Beale promptly, "a game which, if
+it succeeds, will bring misery and suffering to thousands, and will
+bring great businesses tumbling, and set you and your children and your
+children's children working for hundreds of years to pay off a new
+national debt."
+
+"Man alive!" said the other, "are you serious?"
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"I was never more serious in my life," he said, "that is why I don't
+want the police to be too inquisitive in regard to this murder of
+Jackson, whose real name, as I say, is Predeaux. I can tell you this,
+chief, that you are seeing the development of the most damnable plot
+that has ever been hatched in the brain of the worst miscreant that
+history knows. Sit down again. Do you know what happened last year?" he
+asked.
+
+"Last year?" said the superintendent. "Why, the war ended last year."
+
+"The war ended, Germany was beaten, and had to accept terms humiliating
+for a proud nation, but fortunately for her Prussia was not proud, she
+was merely arrogant. Her worst blow was the impoverishing conditions
+which the Entente Powers imposed. That is to say, they demanded certain
+concessions of territory and money which, added to the enormous interest
+of war stock which the Germans had to pay, promised to cripple Prussia
+for a hundred years."
+
+"Well?" said the detective, when the other had stopped.
+
+"Well?" repeated Beale, with a hard little smile. "Germany is going to
+get that money back."
+
+"War?"
+
+Beale laughed.
+
+"No, nothing so foolish as war. Germany has had all the war she wants.
+Oh no, there'll be no war. Do you imagine that we should go to war
+because I came to the Foreign Office with a crazy story. I can tell you
+this, that officially the German Government have no knowledge of this
+plot and are quite willing to repudiate those people who are engaged in
+it. Indeed, if the truth be told, the Government has not contributed a
+single mark to bring the scheme to fruition, but when it is working all
+the money required will be instantly found. At present the inventor of
+this delightful little scheme finds himself with insufficient capital to
+go ahead. It is his intention to secure that capital. There are many
+ways by which this can be done. He has already borrowed L40,000 from
+White, of Punsonby's."
+
+Superintendent McNorton whistled.
+
+"There are other ways," Beale went on, "and he is at liberty to try them
+all except one. The day he secures control of that fortune, that day I
+shoot him."
+
+"The deuce you will?" said the startled Mr. McNorton.
+
+"The deuce I will," repeated Beale.
+
+There was a tap at the door and McNorton rose.
+
+"Don't go," said Beale, "I would like to introduce you to this
+gentleman."
+
+He opened the door and a grey-haired man with a lean, ascetic face came
+in.
+
+Beale closed the door behind him and led the way to the dining-room.
+
+"Mr. Kitson, I should like you to know Superintendent McNorton."
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"Well?" said Kitson, "our medical friend seems to have got away with
+it." He sat at the table, nervously drumming with his fingers. "Does the
+superintendent know everything?"
+
+"Nearly everything," replied Beale.
+
+"Nearly everything," repeated the superintendent with a smile, "except
+this great Green Rust business. There I admit I am puzzled."
+
+"Even I know nothing about that," said Kitson, looking curiously at
+Beale. "I suppose one of these days you will tell us all about it. It is
+a discovery Mr. Beale happed upon whilst he was engaged in protecting
+Miss----" He looked at Beale and Beale nodded--"Miss Cresswell," said
+Kitson.
+
+"The lady who was present at the murder of Jackson?"
+
+"There is no reason why we should not take you into our confidence, the
+more so since the necessity for secrecy is rapidly passing. Miss Oliva
+Cresswell is the niece of John Millinborn. Her mother married a scamp
+who called himself Cresswell but whose real name was Predeaux. He first
+spent every penny she had and then left her and her infant child."
+
+"Predeaux!" cried the detective. "Why you told me that was Jackson's
+real name."
+
+"Jackson, or Predeaux, was her father," said Kitson, "it was believed
+that he was dead; but after John Millinborn's death I set inquiries on
+foot and discovered that he had been serving a life sentence in Cayenne
+and had been released when the French President proclaimed a general
+amnesty at the close of the war. He was evidently on his way to see John
+Millinborn the day my unhappy friend was murdered, and it was the
+recognition of his daughter in the palm-court of the Grand Alliance
+which produced a fainting-fit to which he was subject."
+
+"But how could he recognize the daughter? Had he seen her before?"
+
+For answer Kitson took from his pocket a leather folder and opened it.
+There were two photographs. One of a beautiful woman in the fashion of
+25 years before; and one a snapshot of a girl in a modern costume, whom
+McNorton had no difficulty in recognizing as Oliva Cresswell.
+
+"Yes," he said, "they might be the same person."
+
+"That's the mother on the left," explained Kitson, "the resemblance is
+remarkable. When Jackson saw the girl he called her Mary--that was his
+wife's name. Millinborn left the whole of his fortune to Miss Cresswell,
+but he placed upon me a solemn charge that she was not to benefit or to
+know of her inheritance until she was married. He had a horror of
+fortune-hunters. This was the secret which van Heerden surprised--I fear
+with violence--from poor John as he lay dying. Since then he has been
+plotting to marry the girl. To do him justice, I believe that the
+cold-blooded hound has no other wish than to secure her money. His
+acquaintance with White, who is on the verge of ruin, enabled him to get
+to know the girl. He persuaded her to come here and a flat was found for
+her. Partly," said the lawyer dryly, "because this block of flats
+happens to be her own property and the lady who is supposed to be the
+landlady is a nominee of mine."
+
+"And I suppose that explains Mr. Beale," smiled the inspector.
+
+"That explains Mr. Beale," said Kitson, "whom I brought from New York
+especially to shadow van Heerden and to protect the girl. In the course
+of investigations Mr. Beale has made another discovery, the particulars
+of which I do not know."
+
+There was a little pause.
+
+"Why not tell the girl?" said the superintendent.
+
+Kitson shook his head.
+
+"I have thought it out, and to tell the girl would be tantamount to
+breaking my faith with John Millinborn. No, I must simply shepherd her.
+The first step we must take"--he turned to Beale--"is to get her away
+from this place. Can't you shift your offices to--say New York?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"I can and I can't," he said. "If you will forgive my saying so, the
+matter of the Green Rust is of infinitely greater importance than Miss
+Cresswell's safety."
+
+James Kitson frowned.
+
+"I don't like to hear you say that, Beale."
+
+"I don't like hearing myself say it," confessed the other, "but let me
+put it this way. I believe by staying here I can afford her greater
+protection and at the same time put a spoke in the wheel of Mr. van
+Heerden's larger scheme."
+
+Kitson pinched his lips thoughtfully.
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he said. "Now I want to see this young lady,
+that is why I have come. I suppose there will be no difficulty?"
+
+"None at all, I think," said Beale. "I will tell her that you are
+interested in the work she is doing. I might introduce you as Mr.
+Scobbs," he smiled.
+
+"Who is Scobbs?"
+
+"He is a proprietor of a series of hotels in Western Canada, and is, I
+should imagine, a most praiseworthy and inoffensive captain of minor
+industry, but Miss Cresswell is rather interested in him," he laughed.
+"She found the name occurring in Canadian guide-books and was struck by
+its quaintness."
+
+"Scobbs," said the lawyer slowly. "I seem to know that name."
+
+"You had better know it if I am going to introduce you as Scobbs
+himself," laughed Beale.
+
+"Shall I be in the way?" asked the superintendent.
+
+"No, please stay," said Beale. "I would like you to see this lady. We
+may want your official assistance one of these days to get her out of a
+scrape."
+
+Mr. Beale passed out of the flat and pressed the bell of the door next
+to his. There was no response. He pressed it again after an interval,
+and stepped back to look at the fanlight. No light showed and he took
+out his watch. It was nine o'clock. He had not seen the girl all day,
+having been present at the inquest, but he had heard her door close two
+hours before. No reply came to his second ring, and he went back to his
+flat.
+
+"She's out," he said. "I don't quite understand it. I particularly
+requested her yesterday not to go out after dark for a day or two."
+
+He walked into his bedroom and opened the window. The light of day was
+still in the sky, but he took a small electric lamp to guide him along
+the narrow steel balcony which connected all the flats with the
+fire-escape. He found her window closed and bolted, but with the skill
+of a professional burglar he unfastened the catch and stepped inside.
+
+The room was in darkness. He switched on the light and glanced round. It
+was Oliva's bedroom, and her workday hat and coat were lying on the bed.
+He opened the long cupboard where she kept her limited wardrobe. He
+knew, because it was his business to know, every dress she possessed.
+They were all there as, also, were the three hats which she kept on a
+shelf. All the drawers of the bureau were closed and there was no sign
+of any disorder such as might be expected if she had changed and gone
+out. He opened the door of the bedroom and walked into the sitting-room,
+lighting his way across to the electric switch by means of his lamp.
+
+The moment the light flooded the room he realized that something was
+wrong. There was no disorder, but the room conveyed in some
+indescribable manner a suggestion of violence. An object on the floor
+attracted his attention and he stooped and picked it up. It was a shoe,
+and the strap which had held it in place was broken. He looked at it,
+slipped it in his pocket and passed rapidly through the other rooms to
+the little kitchen and the tiny bath-room, put on the light in the hall
+and made a careful scrutiny of the walls and the floor.
+
+The mat was twisted out of its place, and on the left side of the wall
+there were two long scratches. There was a faint sickly odour.
+
+"Ether," he noted mentally.
+
+He went quickly into the dining-room. The little bureau-desk was open
+and a letter half-finished was lying on the pad, and it was addressed to
+him and ran:
+
+
+     "DEAR MR. BEALE,--
+
+     Circumstances beyond my control make it necessary for me to leave
+     to-night for Liverpool."
+
+
+That was all. It was obviously half finished. He picked it up, folded it
+carefully and slipped it in his pocket. Then he returned to the hall,
+opened the door and passed out.
+
+He explained briefly what had happened and crossed to the doctor's flat,
+and rang the bell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A FRUITLESS SEARCH
+
+
+A light glowed in the hall, the door was opened and the doctor, in
+slippers and velvet coat, stood in the entrance. He showed no resentment
+nor did he have time to show it.
+
+"I want a word with you," said Beale.
+
+"Twenty if you wish," said the doctor cheerfully. "Won't you come in?"
+
+Beale was half-way in before the invitation was issued and followed the
+doctor to his study.
+
+"Are you alone?" he asked.
+
+"Quite alone. I have very few visitors. In fact, my last visitor was
+that unhappy man Jackson."
+
+"When did you see Miss Cresswell last?"
+
+The doctor raised his eyebrows.
+
+"By what right----?" he began.
+
+"Cut all that out," said Beale roughly. "When did you see Miss Cresswell
+last?"
+
+"I have not seen her to-day," said the doctor. "I have not been out of
+my flat since I came back from the inquest."
+
+"I should like to search your flat," said Beale.
+
+"Policeman, eh?" smiled the doctor. "Certainly you can search the flat
+if you have a warrant."
+
+"I have no warrant, but I shall search your flat."
+
+The doctor's face went dull red.
+
+"I suppose you know you are liable to an action for trespass?"
+
+"I know all about that," said Beale, "but if you have nothing to
+conceal, Dr. van Heerden, I don't see why you should object."
+
+"I don't object," shrugged the doctor, "search by all means. Where would
+you like to start? Here?"
+
+He pointed to three upright cases which stood at the end of the room
+nearest the door.
+
+"You will see nothing very pleasant here, they are anatomical models
+which have just arrived from Berlin. In fact, I have been trading with
+the enemy," he smiled. "They are screwed up, but I have a screwdriver
+here."
+
+Beale hesitated.
+
+"There is only another room," the doctor went on, "my bedroom, but you
+will not find her there."
+
+Beale twisted round like lightning.
+
+"Her?" he asked. "Who said Her?"
+
+"I gather you are looking for Miss Cresswell," said the doctor coolly.
+"You are searching for something, and you ask me when I saw her last.
+Who else could you be looking for?"
+
+"Quite right," he said quietly.
+
+"Let me show you the way." The doctor walked ahead and turned on the
+light in the inner bedroom.
+
+It was a large apartment, simply furnished with a small steel bed, a
+hanging wardrobe and a dressing-chest. Beyond that was his bath-room.
+
+Beale was making a casual survey of this when he heard the door of the
+bedroom click behind him. He turned round, jumped for the door, turned
+the handle and pulled, but it did not yield. As he did so he thought he
+heard a mutter of voices.
+
+"Open the door!" he cried, hammering on the panel.
+
+There was no answer. Then:
+
+"Mr. Beale!"
+
+His blood froze at the wild appeal in the tone, for it was the voice of
+Oliva Cresswell, and it came from the room he had quitted.
+
+He smashed at the panel but it was made of tough oak. His revolver was
+in his hand and the muzzle was against the lock when the handle turned
+and the door opened.
+
+"Did you lock yourself in?" smiled the doctor, looking blandly at the
+other's pale face.
+
+"Where is the girl, where is Miss Cresswell?" he demanded. "I heard her
+voice."
+
+"You are mad, my friend."
+
+"Where is Miss Cresswell?"
+
+His hand dropped on the other's shoulder and gripped it with a force
+that made the other shrink. With an oath the doctor flung him off.
+
+"Hang you, you madman! How should I know?"
+
+"I heard her voice."
+
+"It was imagination," said the doctor. "I would have opened the door to
+you before but I had walked out into the passage and had rung Miss
+Cresswell's bell. I found the door open. I suppose you had been in. I
+just shut the door and came back here."
+
+Without a word Beale thrust him aside. He had taken one step to the door
+when he stopped: At the end of the room had been the three long
+anatomical cases. Now there were only two. One had gone. He did not stop
+to question the man. He bounded through the door and raced down the
+stairs. There was no vehicle in sight and only a few pedestrians. At the
+corner of the street he found a policeman who had witnessed nothing
+unusual and had not seen any conveyance carrying a box.
+
+As he returned slowly to the entrance of Krooman Mansions something made
+him look up. The doctor was leaning out of the window smoking a cigar.
+
+"Found her?" he asked mockingly.
+
+Beale made no reply. He came up the stairs, walked straight through the
+open door of the doctor's flat and confronted that calm man as he leant
+against the table, his hands gripping the edge, a cigar in the corner of
+his mouth and a smile of quiet amusement on his bearded lips.
+
+"Well?" he asked, "did you find her?"
+
+"I did not find her, but I am satisfied that _you_ will."
+
+Van Heerden's eyes did not falter.
+
+"I am beginning to think, Mr. Beale, that over-indulgence in alcoholic
+stimulants has turned your brain," he said mockingly. "You come into my
+apartment and demand, with an heroic gesture, where I am concealing a
+beautiful young lady, in whose welfare I am at least as much interested
+as you, since that lady is my fiancee and is going to be my wife."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"She is going to be your wife, is she?" said Beale softly. "I
+congratulate you if I cannot congratulate her. And when is this
+interesting engagement to be announced?"
+
+"It is announced at this moment," said the doctor. "The lady is on her
+way to Liverpool, where she will stay with an aunt of mine. You need not
+trouble to ask me for her address, because I shall not give it to you."
+
+"I see," said Beale.
+
+"You come in here, I repeat, demanding with all the gesture and voice of
+melodrama, the hiding-place of my fiancee,"--he enunciated the two last
+words with great relish--"you ask to search my rooms and I give you
+permission. You lock yourself in through your own carelessness and when
+I release you you have a revolver in your hand, and are even more
+melodramatic than ever. I know what you are going to say----"
+
+"You are a clever man," interrupted Beale, "for I don't know myself."
+
+"You were going to say, or you think, that I have some sinister purpose
+in concealing this lady. Well, to resume my narrative, and to show you
+your conduct from my point of view, I no sooner release you than you
+stare like a lunatic at my anatomical cases and dash wildly out, to
+return full of menace in your tone and attitude. Why?"
+
+"Doctor van Heerden, when I came into your flat there were three
+anatomical cases at the end of that room. When I came out there were
+two. What happened to the third whilst I was locked in the room?"
+
+Doctor van Heerden shook his head pityingly.
+
+"I am afraid, I am very much afraid, that you are not right in your
+head," he said, and nodded toward the place where the cases stood.
+
+Beale followed the direction of his head and gasped, for there were
+three cases.
+
+"I admit that I deceived you when I said they contained specimens. As a
+matter of fact, they are empty," said the doctor. "If you like to
+inspect them, you can. You may find some--clue!"
+
+Beale wanted no invitation. He walked to the cases one by one and
+sounded them. Their lids were screwed on but the screws were dummies. He
+found in the side of each a minute hole under the cover of the lid and,
+taking out his knife, he pressed in the bodkin with which the knife was
+equipped and with a click the lid flew open. The box was empty. The
+second one answered the same test and was also empty. The third gave no
+better result. He flashed his lamp on the bottom of the box, but there
+was no trace of footmarks.
+
+"Are you satisfied?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Far from satisfied," said Beale, and with no other word he walked out
+and down the stairs again.
+
+Half-way down he saw something lying on one of the stairs and picked it
+up. It was a shoe, the fellow of that which he had in his pocket, and it
+had not been there when he came up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oliva Cresswell had read the story of the crime in the _Post Record_,
+had folded up the paper with a little shiver and was at her tiny
+writing-bureau when a knock came at the door. It was Dr. van Heerden.
+
+"Can I come in for a moment?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"I shan't eat you," he smiled, "but I am so distressed by what has
+happened and I feel that an explanation is due to you."
+
+"I shouldn't trouble about that," she smiled, "but if you want to come
+in, please do."
+
+She closed the door behind him and left the light burning in the hall.
+She did not ask him to sit down.
+
+"You have seen the account in the _Post Record_?" he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"And I suppose you are rather struck with the discrepancy between what I
+told you and what I told the reporters, but I feel you ought to know
+that I had a very special reason for protecting this man."
+
+"Of that I have no doubt," she said coldly.
+
+"Miss Cresswell, you must be patient and kind to me," he said earnestly.
+"I have devoted a great deal of time and I have run very considerable
+dangers in order to save you."
+
+"To save me?" she repeated in surprise.
+
+"Miss Cresswell," he asked, "did you ever know your father?"
+
+She shook her head, so impressed by the gravity of his tone that she did
+not cut the conversation short as she had intended.
+
+"No," she said, "I was a girl when he died. I know nothing of him. Even
+his own people who brought him up never spoke of him."
+
+"Are you sure he is dead?" he asked.
+
+"Sure? I have never doubted it. Why do you ask me? Is he alive?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"What I am going to tell you will be rather painful," he said: "your
+father was a notorious swindler." He paused, but she did not protest.
+
+In her life she had heard many hints which did not redound to her
+father's credit, and she had purposely refrained from pursuing her
+inquiries.
+
+"Some time ago your father escaped from Cayenne. He is, you will be
+surprised to know, a French subject, and the police have been searching
+for him for twelve months, including our friend Mr. Beale."
+
+"It isn't true," she flamed. "How dare you suggest----?"
+
+"I am merely telling you the facts, Miss Cresswell, and you must judge
+them for yourself," said the doctor. "Your father robbed a bank in
+France and hid the money in England. Because they knew that sooner or
+later he would send for you the police have been watching you day and
+night. Your father is at Liverpool. I had a letter from him this
+morning. He is dying and he begs you to go to him."
+
+She sat at the table, stunned. There was in this story a hideous
+probability. Her first inclination was to consult Beale, but instantly
+she saw that if what the doctor had said was true such a course would be
+fatal.
+
+"How do I know you are speaking the truth?" she asked.
+
+"You cannot know until you have seen your father," he said. "It is a
+very simple matter."
+
+He took from his pocket an envelope and laid it before her.
+
+"Here is the address--64 Hope Street. I advise you to commit it to
+memory and tear it up. After all, what possible interest could I have in
+your going to Liverpool, or anywhere else for the matter of that?"
+
+"When is the next train?" she asked.
+
+"One leaves in an hour from Euston."
+
+She thought a moment.
+
+"I'll go," she said decidedly.
+
+She was walking back to her room to put on her coat when he called her
+back.
+
+"There's no reason in the world why you should not write to Beale to
+tell him where you have gone," he said. "You can leave a note with me
+and I will deliver it."
+
+She hesitated again, sat down at her desk and scribbled the few lines
+which Beale had found. Then she twisted round in her chair in
+perplexity.
+
+"I don't understand it all," she said. "If Mr. Beale is on the track of
+my father, surely he will understand from this letter that I have gone
+to meet him."
+
+"Let me see what you have written," said van Heerden coolly, and looked
+over her shoulder. "Yes, that's enough," he said.
+
+"Enough?"
+
+"Quite enough. You see, my idea was that you should write sufficient to
+put him off the track."
+
+"I don't understand you--there's somebody in the passage," she said
+suddenly, and was walking to the door leading to the hall when he
+intercepted her.
+
+"Miss Cresswell, I think you will understand me when I tell you that
+your father is dead, that the story I have told you about Beale being on
+his track is quite untrue, and that it is necessary for a purpose which
+I will not disclose to you that you should be my wife."
+
+She sprang back out of his reach, white as death. Instinctively she
+realized that she was in some terrible danger, and the knowledge turned
+her cold.
+
+"Your wife?" she repeated. "I think you must be mad, doctor."
+
+"On the contrary, I am perfectly sane. I would have asked you before,
+but I knew that you would refuse me. Had our friend Beale not
+interfered, the course of true love might have run a little more
+smoothly than it has. Now I am going to speak plainly to you, Miss
+Cresswell. It is necessary that I should marry you, and if you agree I
+shall take you away and place you in safe keeping. I will marry you at
+the registrar's office and part from you the moment the ceremony is
+completed. I will agree to allow you a thousand a year and I will
+promise that I will not interfere with you or in any way seek your
+society."
+
+Her courage had revived during this recital of her future.
+
+"What do you expect me to do," she asked contemptuously--"fall on your
+neck and thank you, you with your thousand a year and your church-door
+partings? No, doctor, if you are sane then you are either a great fool
+or a great scoundrel. I would never dream of marrying you under any
+circumstances. And now I think you had better go."
+
+This time he did not stop her as she walked to the door and flung it
+open. She started back with an exclamation of fear, for there were two
+men in the hall.
+
+"What do you----"
+
+So far she got when the doctor's arm was round her and his hand was
+pressed against her mouth. One of the men was carrying what looked like
+a rubber bottle with a conical-shaped mouthpiece. She struggled, but the
+doctor held her in a grip of steel. She was thrown to the ground, the
+rubber cap of the bottle was pressed over her face, there came a rush of
+cold air heavily charged with a sickly scent, and she felt life slipping
+away....
+
+"I think she's off now," said the doctor, lifting up her eyelid, "see if
+the coast is clear, Gregory, and open the door of my flat."
+
+The man departed. The doctor lifted the unconscious girl in his arms. He
+was in the hall when he felt her move. Half-conscious as she was, she
+was struggling to prevent the abduction.
+
+"Quick, the door!" he gasped.
+
+He carried her across the landing into his room, and the door closed
+quietly behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE HOUSE NEAR STAINES
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell remembered nothing. She did not remember being thrust
+limply into a long narrow box, nor hearing Beale's voice, nor the click
+of the door that fastened him in Dr. van Heerden's bedroom. If she cried
+out, as she did, she had no recollection of the fact.
+
+"Carry her, box and all, to her flat. The door is open," whispered van
+Heerden to the two men who had made their lightning disappearance into
+the anatomical cases at the sound of Beale's knock.
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+"Wait till I come to you. Hurry!"
+
+They crossed the landing and passed through the open door of Oliva's
+flat and the doctor closed the door behind them and returned in time to
+release the savage Beale.
+
+He watched him racing down the stairs, darted to the door of Oliva's
+rooms, opened it and went in. In ten seconds she had been lifted from
+her narrow prison and laid on her bed, the box had been returned to the
+place where it had stood in the doctor's study and the men had returned
+to join van Heerden in Oliva's darkened sitting-room.
+
+Van Heerden had switched on the light in the girl's room and then
+noticed for the first time that one of her shoes was missing. Quickly he
+slipped off the remaining shoe.
+
+"You wait here," he told the men, "until you hear Beale return. Then
+make your escape. On your way down leave the shoe on the stairs. It will
+help to put our friend off the trail."
+
+Half an hour after the discovery of the shoe on the stairs Beale went
+out accompanied by his visitors.
+
+The doctor watched the dark figures disappear into the night from the
+window of his sitting-room and made his way back to the girl's flat. She
+was lying where he had left her, feeling dizzy and sick. Her eyes closed
+in a little grimace of distaste as he put on the light.
+
+"How does my little friend feel now?" he asked coolly.
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Really, you must not sulk," he said chidingly, "and you must get used
+to being polite because you are going to see a great deal of me. You had
+better get up and put your coat on."
+
+She noticed that he had a medicine glass in his hand, half-filled with a
+milky-white liquor.
+
+"Drink this," he said.
+
+She pushed it away.
+
+"Come, drink it," he said, "you don't suppose I want to poison you, do
+you? I don't even want to drug you, otherwise it would have been simple
+to have given you a little more ether. Drink it. It will take that hazy
+feeling out of your head."
+
+She took the glass with an unsteady hand and swallowed its contents. It
+was bitter and hot and burnt her throat, but its effects were magical.
+In three minutes her mind had cleared and when she sat up she could do
+so without her head swimming.
+
+"You will now put on your coat and hat, pack a few things that you want
+for a journey, and come along with me."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the sort," she said, "I advise you to go, Dr. van
+Heerden, before I inform the police of your outrageous conduct."
+
+"Put on your hat and coat," he repeated calmly, "and don't talk
+nonsense. You don't suppose that I have risked all that I have risked to
+let you go at this hour."
+
+"Dr. van Heerden," she said, "if you have any spark of decency or
+manhood you will leave me."
+
+He laughed a little.
+
+"Now you are talking like a heroine of Lyceum drama," he said. "Any
+appeal you might make, Miss Cresswell, is a waste of time and a waste of
+breath. I shall have no hesitation in using violence of the most
+unpleasant character unless you do as I tell you."
+
+His voice was quiet, but there was about him a convincing air of
+purpose.
+
+"Where are you going to take me?" she asked.
+
+"I am going to take you to a place of safety. When I say safety," he
+added, "I mean safety for me. You yourself need fear nothing unless you
+act foolishly, in which case you have everything to fear. Disabuse your
+mind of one thought, Miss Cresswell," he said, "and that is that I am in
+love with you and that there is any quality or charm in your admirable
+person which would prevent my cutting your throat if it was necessary
+for my safety. I am not a brute. I will treat you decently, as well as
+any lady could wish to be treated, if you do not cross me, but I warn
+you that if in the street you call for help or attempt to escape you
+will never know what happened to you."
+
+She stood at the end of her bed, one hand gripping the rail, her white
+teeth showing against the red lower lip.
+
+"Don't bite your lips, it does not stimulate thought, I can tell you
+that as a medical man, and I can also tell you that this is not the
+moment for you to consider plans for outwitting me. Get your coat and
+hat on."
+
+His voice was now peremptory, and she obeyed. In a few minutes she was
+dressed ready for the street. He led the way out and holding her arm
+lightly they passed out into the street. He turned sharply to the left,
+the girl keeping in step by his side. To the casual observer, and few
+could observe them in the gloom of the ill-lit thoroughfares through
+which they passed, they were a couple on affectionate terms, but the arm
+locked in hers was the arm of a gaoler, and once when they stood waiting
+to cross busy Oxford Circus, and she had seen a policeman a few yards
+away and had cautiously tried to slip her arm from his, she found her
+wrist gripped with a hand of steel.
+
+At the Marylebone Road end of Portland Place a car was waiting and the
+doctor opened the door and pushed her in, following immediately.
+
+"I had to keep the car some distance from Krooman Mansions or Beale
+would have spotted it immediately," he said in an easy conversational
+tone.
+
+"Where are you taking me?" she asked.
+
+"To a highly desirable residence in the Thames Valley," he said, "in the
+days when I thought you might be wooed and wed, as the saying goes, I
+thought it might make an excellent place for a honeymoon." He felt her
+shrink from him.
+
+"Please don't be distressed, I am rather glad that matters have turned
+out as they have. I do not like women very much, and I should have been
+inexpressibly bored if I had to keep up the fiction of being in love
+with you."
+
+"What do you intend doing?" she asked. "You cannot hope to escape from
+Mr. Beale. He will find me."
+
+He chuckled.
+
+"As a sleuth-hound, Mr. Beale has his points," he said, "but they are
+not points which keep me awake at night. I have always suspected he was
+a detective, and, of course, it was he who planted the registered
+envelopes on poor old White--that was clever," he admitted handsomely,
+"but Beale, if you will excuse my hurting your feelings--and I know you
+are half in love with him----"
+
+She felt her face go hot.
+
+"How dare you!" she flamed.
+
+"Don't be silly," he begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances,
+the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself
+entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much
+faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular
+police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who
+figure in divorce cases."
+
+She did not reply. Inwardly she was boiling, and she recognized with a
+little feeling of dismay that it was not so much the indignity which he
+was offering her, as his undisguised contempt for the genius of Beale,
+which enraged her.
+
+They had left the town and were spinning through the country when she
+spoke again.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to tell me what you intend doing?"
+
+He had fallen into a reverie and it was evidently a pleasant reverie,
+for he came back to the realities of life with an air of reluctance.
+
+"Eh? Oh, what am I going to do with you? Why, I am going to marry you."
+
+"Suppose I refuse?"
+
+"You won't refuse. I am offering you the easiest way out. When you are
+married to me your danger is at an end. Until you marry me your hold on
+life is somewhat precarious."
+
+"But why do you insist upon this?" she asked, bewildered, "If you don't
+love me, what is there in marriage for you? There are plenty of women
+who would be delighted to have you. Why should you want to marry a girl
+without any influence or position--a shop-girl, absolutely penniless?"
+
+"It's a whim of mine," he said lightly, "and it's a whim I mean to
+gratify."
+
+"Suppose I refuse at the last moment?"
+
+"Then," he said significantly, "you will be sorry. I tell you, no harm
+is coming to you if you are sensible. If you are not sensible, imagine
+the worst that can happen to you, and that will be the least. I will
+treat you so that you will not think of your experience, let alone talk
+of it."
+
+There was a cold malignity in his voice that made her shudder. For a
+moment, and a moment only, she was beaten down by the horrible
+hopelessness of her situation, then her natural courage, her
+indomitable, self-reliance overcame fear. If he expected an outburst of
+anger and incoherent reproach, or if he expected her to break down into
+hysterical supplication, he was disappointed. She had a firm grip upon
+herself, perfect command of voice and words.
+
+"I suppose you are one of those clever criminals one reads about," she
+said, "prepared for all emergencies, perfectly self-confident, capable
+and satisfied that there is nobody quite so clever as themselves."
+
+"Very likely," he smiled. "It is a form of egotism," he said quietly. "I
+read a book once about criminals. It was written by an Italian and he
+said that was the chief characteristic of them all."
+
+"Vanity? And they always do such clever things and such stupid things at
+the same time, and their beautiful plans are so full of absurd
+miscalculations, just as yours are."
+
+"Just as mine are," he said mockingly.
+
+"Just as yours are," she repeated; "you are so satisfied that because
+you are educated and you are a scientist, that you are ever so much more
+clever than all the rest of the world."
+
+"Go on," he said. "I like to hear you talking. Your analysis is nearly
+perfect and certainly there is a lot of truth in what you say."
+
+She held down the surging anger which almost choked her and retained a
+calm level. Sooner or later she would find the joint in his harness.
+
+"I suppose you have everything ready?"
+
+"My staff work is always good," he murmured, "marriage licence, parson,
+even the place where you will spend your solitary honeymoon after
+signing a few documents."
+
+She turned toward him slowly. Against the window of the big limousine
+his head was faintly outlined and she imagined the smile which was on
+his face at that moment.
+
+"So that is it!" she said. "I must sign a few documents saying that I
+married you of my own free will!"
+
+"No, madam," he said, "the circumstances under which you marry me
+require no justification and that doesn't worry me in the slightest."
+
+"What documents have I to sign?" she asked.
+
+"You will discover in time," said he. "Here is the house, unless my
+eyesight has gone wrong."
+
+The car turned from the road, seemed to plunge into a high hedge, though
+in reality, as the girl saw for a second as the lamps caught the stone
+gate-posts, it was the entrance to a drive, and presently came to a stop
+before a big rambling house. Van Heerden jumped down and assisted her to
+alight. The house was in darkness, but as they reached the door it was
+opened.
+
+"Go in," said van Heerden, and pushed her ahead.
+
+She found herself in an old-fashioned hall, the walls panelled of oak,
+the floor made of closely mortised stone flags. She recognized the man
+who had admitted them as one of those she had seen in her flat that same
+night. He was a cadaverous man with high cheekbones and short, bristly
+black hair and a tiny black moustache.
+
+"I won't introduce you," said the doctor, "but you may call this man
+Gregory. It is not his name, but it is good enough."
+
+The man smiled furtively and eyed her furtively, took up the candle and
+led the way to a room which opened off the hall at the farther end.
+
+"This is the dining-room," said van Heerden. "It is chiefly interesting
+to you as the place where the ceremony will be performed. Your room is
+immediately above. I am sorry I did not engage a maid for you, but I
+cannot afford to observe the proprieties or consider your reputation.
+The fact is, I know no woman I could trust to perform that duty, and
+you will have to look after yourself."
+
+He led the way upstairs, unlocked a door and passed in. There was one
+window which was heavily curtained. He saw her glance and nodded.
+
+"You will find the windows barred," he said. "This was evidently the
+nursery and is admirably suited to my purpose. In addition, I might tell
+you that the house is a very old one and that it is impossible to walk
+about the room without the door creaking and, as I spend most of my time
+in the dining-room below, you will find it extremely difficult even to
+make preparations for escape without my being aware of the fact."
+
+The room was comfortably furnished. A small fire was alight in the tiny
+grate and a table had been laid, on which were displayed sandwiches, a
+thermos flask and a small silver basket of confectionery.
+
+There was a door by the big four-poster bed.
+
+"You may consider yourself fortunate in having the only room in the
+house with a bath-room attached," he said. "You English people are
+rather particular about that kind of thing."
+
+"And you German people aren't," she said coolly.
+
+"German?" he laughed. "So you guessed that, did you?"
+
+"Guessed it?"--it was her turn to laugh scornfully. "Isn't the fact
+self-evident? Who but a Hun----"
+
+His face went a dull red.
+
+"That is a word you must not use to me," he said roughly--"hang your
+arrogance! Huns! We, who gave the world its kultur, who lead in every
+department of science, art and literature!"
+
+She stared at him in amazement.
+
+"You are joking, of course," she said, forgetting her danger for the
+moment in face of this extraordinary phenomenon. "If you are a German,
+and I suppose you are, and an educated German at that, you don't for a
+moment imagine you gave the world anything. Why, the Germans have never
+been anything but exploiters of other men's brains."
+
+From dull red, his face had gone white, his lip was trembling with
+passion and when he spoke he could scarcely control his voice.
+
+"We were of all people ordained by God to save the world through the
+German spirit."
+
+So far he got when she burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It
+was so like all the caricatures of German character she had read or seen
+depicted. He looked at her, his face distorted with rage, and before she
+had realized what had happened he had raised his hand and struck her
+across the mouth.
+
+She staggered back, speechless. To her had happened the most incredible
+thing in the world, more incredible than her abduction, more incredible
+than all the villainies known or suspected, in this man.
+
+He stood there glowering at her, unrepentant, half-tempted, it seemed,
+to repeat the blow. He had struck a woman and was not overwhelmed by
+shame. All her views of men and things, all her conceptions of the codes
+which govern mankind in their dealings one with the other, crumbled
+away. If he had fallen on his knees and asked her pardon, if he had
+shown any contrition, any fear, any shame, she might have gone back to
+her old standards.
+
+"You swine cat!" he said in German, "Herr Gott, but I will punish you if
+you laugh at me!"
+
+She was staring at him in intense curiosity. Her lip was bleeding a
+little, the red mark of his fingers showed against her white face, but
+she seemed to have forgotten the pain or the shock of the actual blow
+and was wholly concerned in this new revelation.
+
+"A Hun," she said, but she seemed to be speaking to herself, "of course
+he's a Hun. They do that sort of thing, but I never believed it before."
+
+He took a step toward her, but she did not flinch, and he turned and
+walked quickly from the room, locking the door behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+INTRODUCING PARSON HOMO
+
+
+When Beale left Krooman Mansions with his two companions he had only the
+haziest idea as to where he should begin his search. Perhaps the
+personal interest he had in his client, an interest revealed by the
+momentary panic into which her disappearance had thrown this usually
+collected young man, clouded his better judgment.
+
+A vague discomfort possessed him and he paused irresolutely at the
+corner of the street. There was a chance that she might still be
+concealed in the building, but a greater chance that if he followed one
+of the three plans which were rapidly forming in his mind he might save
+the girl from whatever danger threatened her.
+
+"You are perfectly sure you heard her voice?"
+
+"Certain," replied Beale shortly, "just as I am sure that I smelt the
+ether."
+
+"She may have been using it for some other purpose. Women put these
+drugs to all sorts of weird purposes, like cleaning gloves, and----"
+
+"That may be," interrupted Beale, "but I wasn't mistaken about her
+voice. I am not subject to illusions of that kind."
+
+He whistled. A man who had been lurking in the shadow of a building on
+the opposite side of the road crossed to him.
+
+"Fenson," said Beale, "watch these flats. If you see a car drive up just
+go along and stand in front of the door. Don't let anybody enter that
+car or carry any bundle into that car until you are sure that Miss
+Cresswell is not one of the party or the bundle. If necessary you can
+pull a gun--I know it isn't done in law-abiding London," he smiled at
+Superintendent McNorton, "but I guess you've got to let me do a little
+law-breaking."
+
+"Go all the way," said the superintendent easily.
+
+"That will do, Fenson. You know Miss Cresswell?"
+
+"Sure, sir," said the man, and melted back into the shadows.
+
+"Where are you going now?" asked Kitson.
+
+"I am going to interview a gentleman who will probably give me a great
+deal of information about van Heerden's other residences."
+
+"Has he many?" asked Kitson, in surprise.
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"He has been hiring buildings and houses for the past three months," he
+said quietly, "and he has been so clever that I will defy you to trace
+one of them. All his hiring has been done through various lawyers he has
+employed, and they are all taken in fictitious names."
+
+"Do you know any of them?"
+
+"Not one," said Beale, with a baffled little laugh, "didn't I tell you
+he's mighty clever? I got track of two of them but they were the only
+two where the sale didn't go through."
+
+"What does he want houses for?"
+
+"We shall learn one of these days," said Beale cryptically. "I can tell
+you something else, gentlemen, and this is more of a suspicion than a
+certainty, that there is not a crank scientist who has ever gone under
+through drink or crime in the whole of this country, aye, and America
+and France, too, that isn't working for him. And now, gentlemen, if you
+will excuse me----"
+
+"You don't want any assistance?" asked the superintendent.
+
+"I guess not," said Beale, with a smile, "I guess I can manage the Herr
+Professor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the south side of the River Thames is a congested and thickly
+populated area lying between the Waterloo and the Blackfriars Roads.
+Here old houses, which are gauntly picturesque because of their age,
+stand cheek-by-jowl with great blocks of model dwellings, which make up
+in utility all that they lack in beauty. Such dwelling-places have a
+double advantage. Their rent is low and they are close to the centre of
+London. Few of the houses are occupied by one family, and indeed it is
+the exception that one family rents in its entirety so much as a floor.
+
+In a basement room in one of those houses sat two men as unlike one
+another as it is possible to conceive. The room itself was strangely
+tidy and bare of anything but the necessary furniture. A camp bed was
+under the window in such a position as to give its occupant a view of
+the ankles of those people who trod the pavement of the little street.
+
+A faded cretonne curtain hid an inner and probably a smaller room where
+the elder of the men slept. They sat on either side of a table, a
+kerosene lamp placed exactly in the centre supplying light for their
+various occupations.
+
+The elder of the two was bent forward over a microscope, his big hands
+adjusting the focus screw. Presently he would break off his work of
+observation and jot down a few notes in crabbed German characters. His
+big head, his squat body, his long ungainly arms, his pale face with its
+little wisp of beard, would have been recognized by Oliva Cresswell, for
+this was Professor Heyler--"the Herr Professor," as Beale called him.
+
+The man sitting opposite was cast in a different mould. He was tall,
+spare, almost aesthetic. The clean-shaven face, the well-moulded nose and
+chin hinted at a refinement which his shabby threadbare suit and his
+collarless shirt freakishly accentuated. Now and again he would raise
+his deep-set eyes from the book he was reading, survey the absorbed
+professor with a speculative glance and then return to his reading.
+
+They had sat in silence for the greater part of an hour, when Beale's
+tap on the door brought the reader round with narrow eyes.
+
+"Expecting a visitor, professor?" he asked in German.
+
+"Nein, nein," rambled the old man, "who shall visit me? Ah yes"--he
+tapped his fat forefinger--"I remember, the Fraeulein was to call."
+
+He got up and, shuffling to the door, slipped back the bolt and turned
+it. His face fell when he saw Beale, and the man at the table rose.
+
+"Hope I am not disturbing you," said the detective. "I thought you
+lived alone."
+
+He, too, spoke in the language which the professor understood best.
+
+"That is a friend of mine," said old Heyler uncomfortably, "we live
+together. I did not think you knew my address."
+
+"Introduce me," said the man at the table coolly.
+
+The old professor looked dubiously from one to the other.
+
+"It is my friend, Herr Homo."
+
+"Herr Homo," repeated Beale, offering his hand, "my name is Beale."
+
+Homo shot a keen glance at him.
+
+"A split! or my criminal instincts fail me," he said, pleasantly enough.
+
+"Split?" repeated Beale, puzzled.
+
+"American I gather from your accent," said Mr. Homo; "pray sit down.
+'Split' is the phrase employed by the criminal classes to describe a
+gentleman who in your country is known as a 'fly cop'!"
+
+"Oh, a detective," smiled Beale. "No, in the sense you mean I am not a
+detective. At any rate, I have not come on business."
+
+"So I gather," said the other, seating himself, "or you would have
+brought one of the 'busy fellows' with you. Here again you must pardon
+the slang but we call the detective the 'busy fellow' to distinguish him
+from the 'flattie,' who is the regular cop. Unless you should be under
+any misapprehension, Mr. Beale, it is my duty to tell you that I am a
+representative of the criminal classes, a fact which our learned
+friend," he nodded toward the distressed professor, "never ceases to
+deplore," and he smiled blandly.
+
+They had dropped into English and the professor after waiting
+uncomfortably for the visitor to explain his business had dropped back
+to his work with a grunt.
+
+"I am Parson Homo and this is my _pied-a-terre_. We professional
+criminals must have somewhere to go when we are not in prison, you
+know."
+
+The voice was that of an educated man, its modulation, the confidence
+and the perfect poise of the speaker suggested the college man.
+
+"So that you shall not be shocked by revelations I must tell you that I
+have just come out of prison. I am by way of being a professional
+burglar."
+
+"I am not easily shocked," said Beale.
+
+He glanced at the professor.
+
+"I see," said Parson Homo, rising, "that I am _de trop_. Unfortunately I
+cannot go into the street without risking arrest. In this country, you
+know, there is a law which is called the Prevention of Crimes Act, which
+empowers the unemployed members of the constabulary who find time
+hanging on their hands to arrest known criminals on suspicion if they
+are seen out in questionable circumstances. And as all circumstances are
+questionable to the unimaginative 'flattie,' and his no less obtuse
+friend the 'split,' I will retire to the bedroom and stuff my ears with
+cotton-wool."
+
+"You needn't," smiled Beale, "I guess the professor hasn't many secrets
+from you."
+
+"Go on guessing, my ingenious friend," said the parson, smiling with his
+eyes, "my own secrets I am willing to reveal but--_adios!_"
+
+He waved his hand and passed behind the cretonne curtain and the old man
+looked up from his instrument.
+
+"It is the Donovan Leichmann body that I search for," he said solemnly;
+"there was a case of sleeping-sickness at the docks, and the Herr
+Professor of the Tropical School so kindly let me have a little blood
+for testing."
+
+"Professor," said Beale, sitting down in the place which Parson Homo had
+vacated and leaning across the table, "are you still working for van
+Heerden?"
+
+The old man rolled his big head from side to side in an agony of
+protest.
+
+"Of the learned doctor I do not want to speak," he said, "to me he has
+been most kind. Consider, Herr Peale, I was starving in this country
+which hates Germans and regard as a mad old fool and an ugly old devil,
+and none helped me until the learned doctor discovered me. I am a
+German, yes. Yet I have no nationality, being absorbed in the larger
+brotherhood of science. As for me I am indifferent whether the Kaiser or
+the Socialists live in Potsdam, but I am loyal, Herr Peale, to all who
+help me. To you, also," he said hastily, "for you have been most kind,
+and once when in foolishness I went into a room where I ought not to
+have been you saved me from the police." He shrugged his massive
+shoulders again. "I am grateful, but must I not also be grateful to the
+learned doctor?"
+
+"Tell me this, professor," said Beale, "where can I find the learned
+doctor to-night?"
+
+"At his so-well-known laboratory, where else?" asked the professor.
+
+"Where else?" repeated Beale.
+
+The old man was silent.
+
+"It is forbidden that I should speak," he said; "the Herr Doctor is
+engaged in a great experiment which will bring him fortune. If I betray
+his secrets he may be ruined. Such ingratitude, Herr Peale!"
+
+There was a silence, the old professor, obviously distressed and ill at
+ease, looking anxiously at the younger man.
+
+"Suppose I tell you that the Herr Doctor is engaged in a dangerous
+conspiracy," said Beale, "and that you yourself are running a
+considerable risk by assisting him?"
+
+The big hands were outspread in despair.
+
+"The Herr Doctor has many enemies," mumbled Heyler. "I can tell you
+nothing, Herr Peale."
+
+"Tell me this," said Beale: "is there any place you know of where the
+doctor may have taken a lady--the young lady into whose room you went
+the night I found you?"
+
+"A young lady?" The old man was obviously surprised. "No, no, Herr
+Peale, there is no place where a young lady could go. Ach! No!"
+
+"Well," said Beale, after a pause, "I guess I can do no more with you,
+professor." He glanced round at the cretonne recess: "I won't
+inconvenience you any longer, Mr. Homo."
+
+The curtains were pushed aside and the aesthetic-looking man stepped
+out, the half-smile on his thin lips.
+
+"I fear you have had a disappointing visit," he said pleasantly, "and it
+is on the tip of your tongue to ask me if I can help you. I will save
+you the trouble of asking--I can't."
+
+Beale laughed.
+
+"You are a bad thought-reader," he said. "I had no intention of asking
+you."
+
+He nodded to the old man, and with another nod to his companion was
+turning when a rap came at the door. He saw the two men exchange glances
+and noted in the face of the professor a look of blank dismay. The knock
+was repeated impatiently.
+
+"Permit me," said Beale, and stepped to the door.
+
+"Wait, wait," stammered the professor, "if Mr. Peale will permit----"
+
+He shuffled forward, but Beale had turned the latch and opened the door
+wide. Standing in the entrance was a girl whom he had no difficulty in
+recognizing as Hilda Glaum, sometime desk companion of Oliva Cresswell.
+His back was to the light and she did not recognize him.
+
+"Why did you not open more quickly?" she asked in German, and swung the
+heavy bag she carried into the room, "every moment I thought I should be
+intercepted. Here is the bag. It will be called for to-morrow----"
+
+It was then that she saw Beale for the first time and her face went
+white.
+
+"Who--who are you?" she asked; then quickly, "I know you. You are the
+man Beale. The drunken man----"
+
+She looked from him to the bag at her feet and to him again, then before
+he could divine her intention she had stooped and grasped the handle of
+the bag. Instantly all his attention was riveted upon that leather case
+and its secret. His hand shot out and gripped her arm, but she wrenched
+herself free. In doing so the bag was carried by the momentum of its
+release and was driven heavily against the wall. He heard a shivering
+crash as though a hundred little glasses had broken simultaneously.
+
+Before he could reach the bag she snatched it up, leapt through the
+open door and slammed it to behind her. His hand was on the latch----
+
+"Put 'em up, Mr. Beale, put 'em up," said a voice behind him. "Right
+above your head, Mr. Beale, where we can see them."
+
+He turned slowly, his hands rising mechanically to face Parson Homo, who
+still sat at the table, but he had discarded his Greek book and was
+handling a business-like revolver, the muzzle of which covered the
+detective.
+
+"Smells rotten, doesn't it?" said Homo pleasantly.
+
+Beale, too, had sniffed the musty odour, and knew that it came from the
+bag the girl had wrenched from his grasp. It was the sickly scent of the
+Green Rust!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AT DEANS FOLLY
+
+
+With her elbows resting on the broad window-ledge and her cheeks against
+the cold steel bars which covered the window, Oliva Cresswell watched
+the mists slowly dissipate in the gentle warmth of the morning sun. She
+had spent the night dozing in a rocking-chair and at the first light of
+day she had bathed and redressed ready for any emergency. She had not
+heard any sound during the night and she guessed that van Heerden had
+returned to London.
+
+The room in which she was imprisoned was on the first floor at the back
+of the house and the view she had of the grounds was restricted to a
+glimpse between two big lilac bushes which were planted almost on a
+level with her room.
+
+The house had been built on the slope of a gentle rise so that you might
+walk from the first-floor window on to the grassy lawn at the back of
+the house but for two important obstacles, the first being represented
+by the bars which protected the window and the second by a deep area,
+concrete-lined, which formed a trench too wide to jump.
+
+She could see, however, that the grounds were extensive. The high wall
+which, apparently, separated the garden from the road was a hundred
+yards away. She knew it must be the road because of a little brown gate
+which from time to time she saw between the swaying bushes. She turned
+wearily from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. She was not
+afraid--irritated would be a better word to describe her emotion. She
+was mystified, too, and that was an added irritation.
+
+Why should this man, van Heerden, who admittedly did not love her, who
+indeed loved her so little that he could strike her and show no signs of
+remorse--why did this man want to marry her? If he wanted to marry her,
+why did he kidnap her?
+
+There was another question, too, which she had debated that night. Why
+did his reference to the American detective, Beale, so greatly embarrass
+her?
+
+She had reached the point where even such tremendous subjects of debate
+had become less interesting than the answer to that question which was
+furnished, when a knock came to her door and a gruff voice said:
+
+"Breakfast!"
+
+She unlocked the door and pulled it open. The man called Gregory was
+standing on the landing. He jerked his thumb to the room opposite.
+
+"You can use both these rooms," he said, "but you can't come downstairs.
+I have put your breakfast in there."
+
+She followed the thumb across the landing and found herself in a plainly
+furnished sitting-room. The table had been laid with a respectable
+breakfast, and until she had appeased her healthy young appetite she
+took very little stock of her surroundings.
+
+The man came up in half an hour to clear away the table.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to tell me where I am?" asked Oliva.
+
+"I am not going to tell you anything," said Gregory.
+
+"I suppose you know that by detaining me here you are committing a very
+serious crime?"
+
+"Tell it to the doctor," said the man, with a queer little smile.
+
+She followed him out to the landing. She wanted to see what sort of
+guard was kept and what possibilities there were of escape. Somehow it
+seemed easier to make a reconnaissance now under his very eyes than it
+had been in the night, when in every shadow had lurked a menace.
+
+She did not follow him far, however. He put down the tray at the head of
+the stairs and reaching out both his hands drew two sliding doors from
+the wall and snapped them in her face. She heard the click of a door and
+knew that any chance of escape from this direction was hopeless. The
+doors had slid noiselessly on their oiled runners and had formed for her
+a little lobby of the landing. She guessed that the sliding doors had
+been closed after van Heerden's departure. She had exhausted all the
+possibilities of her bedroom and now began an inspection of the other.
+
+Like its fellow, the windows were barred. There was a bookshelf, crowded
+with old volumes, mostly on matters ecclesiastical or theological. She
+looked at it thoughtfully.
+
+"Now, if I were clever like Mr. Beale," she said aloud, "I could deduce
+quite a lot from this room."
+
+A distant church bell began to clang and she realized with a start that
+the day was Sunday. She looked at her watch and was amazed to see it was
+nearly eleven. She must have slept longer than she had thought.
+
+This window afforded her no better view than did that of the bedroom,
+except that she could see the gate more plainly and what looked to be
+the end of a low-roofed brick building which had been erected against
+the wall. She craned her neck, looking left and right, but the bushes
+had been carefully planted to give the previous occupants of these two
+rooms greater privacy.
+
+Presently the bell stopped and she addressed herself again to an
+examination of the room. In an old-fashioned sloping desk she found a
+few sheets of paper, a pen and a bottle half-filled with thick ink.
+There were also two telegraph forms, and these gave her an idea. She
+went back to the table in the middle of the room. With paper before her
+she began to note the contents of the apartment.
+
+"I am trying to be Bealish," she admitted.
+
+She might also have confessed that she was trying to keep her mind off
+her possibly perilous position and that though she was not afraid she
+had a fear of fear.
+
+"A case full of very dull good books. That means that the person who
+lived here before was very serious-minded."
+
+She walked over and examined the titles, pulled out a few books and
+looked at their title pages. They all bore the same name, "L. T. B.
+Stringer." She uttered an exclamation. Wasn't there some directory of
+clergymen's names?--she was sure this was a clergyman, nobody else would
+have a library of such weighty volumes.
+
+Her fingers ran along the shelves and presently she found what she
+wanted--Crocker's Clergy List of 1879. She opened the book and presently
+found, "Stringer, Laurence Thomas Benjamin, Vicar of Upper Staines,
+Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines."
+
+Her eyes sparkled. Instinctively she knew that she had located her
+prison. Van Heerden had certainly hired the house furnished, probably
+from the clergyman or his widow. She began to search the room with
+feverish haste. Near the window was a cupboard built out. She opened it
+and found that it was a small service lift, apparently communicating
+with the kitchen. In a corner of the room was an invalid chair on
+wheels.
+
+She sat down at the table and reconstructed the character of its
+occupant. She saw an invalid clergyman who had lived permanently in this
+part of the house. He was probably wheeled from his bedroom to his
+sitting-room, and in this cheerless chamber had spent the last years of
+his life. And this place was Deans Folly? She took up the telegraph form
+and after a few minutes' deliberation wrote:
+
+"To Beale, Krooman Mansions."
+
+She scratched that out, remembering that he had a telegraphic address
+and substituted:
+
+"Belocity, London." She thought a moment, then wrote: "Am imprisoned at
+Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines. Oliva." That looked too
+bold, and she added "Cresswell."
+
+She took a florin from her bag and wrapped it up in the telegraph form.
+She had no exact idea as to how she should get the message sent to the
+telegraph office, and it was Sunday, when all telegraph offices would be
+closed. Nor was there any immediate prospect of her finding a messenger.
+She supposed that tradesmen came to the house and that the kitchen door
+was somewhere under her window, but tradesmen do not call on Sundays.
+She held the little package irresolutely in her hand. She must take her
+chance to-day. To-morrow would be Monday and it was certain somebody
+would call.
+
+With this assurance she tucked the message into her blouse. She was in
+no mood to continue her inspection of the room, and it was only because
+in looking again from the window she pulled it from its hook that she
+saw the strange-looking instrument which hung between the window and the
+service lift. She picked it up, a dusty-looking thing. It consisted of a
+short vulcanite handle, from which extended two flat steel supports,
+terminating in vulcanite ear-plates. The handle was connected by a green
+cord with a plug in the wall.
+
+Oliva recognized it. It was an electrophone. One of those instruments by
+which stay-at-home people can listen to an opera, a theatrical
+entertainment or--a sermon. Of course it was a church. It was a very
+common practice for invalids to be connected up with their favourite
+pulpit, and doubtless the Rev. Mr. Stringer had derived considerable
+comfort from this invention.
+
+She dusted the receiver and put them to her ears. She heard nothing.
+Beneath the plug was a little switch. She turned this over and instantly
+her ears were filled with a strange hollow sound--the sound which a bad
+gramophone record makes.
+
+Then she realized that she was listening to a congregation singing.
+This ceased after awhile and she heard a cough, so surprisingly near and
+loud that she started. Of course, the transmitter would be in the
+pulpit, she thought. Then a voice spoke, clear and distinct, yet with
+that drawl which is the peculiar property of ministers of the
+Established Church. She smiled as the first words came to her.
+
+"I publish the banns of marriage between Henry Colebrook, and Jane Maria
+Smith both of this parish. This is the second time of asking." A pause,
+then: "Also between Henry Victor Vanden and Oliva Cresswell Predeaux,
+both of this parish. This is the third time of asking. If any of you
+know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined
+together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it."
+
+She dropped the instrument with a crash and stood staring down at it.
+She had been listening to the publication of her own wedding-notice.
+
+"Vanden" was van Heerden. "Oliva Cresswell Predeaux" was herself. The
+strangeness of the names meant nothing. She guessed rather than knew
+that the false name would not be any insuperable bar to the ceremony.
+She must get away. For the first time she had a horrible sense of being
+trapped, and for a few seconds she must have lost her head, for she
+tugged at the iron bars, dashed wildly out and hammered at the sliding
+door. Presently her reason took charge. She heard the heavy step of
+Gregory on the stairs and recovered her calm by the time he had unlocked
+the bar and pulled the doors apart.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked.
+
+"I want you to let me out of here."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" he said sarcastically, and for the second time that
+day slammed the door in her face.
+
+She waited until he was out of hearing, then she went back noiselessly
+to the sitting-room. She pushed open the door of the service lift and
+tested the ropes. There were two, one which supported the lift and one
+by which it was hauled up, and she gathered that these with the lift
+itself formed an endless chain.
+
+Gripping both ropes firmly she crept into the confined space of the
+cupboard and let herself down hand over hand. She had about twelve feet
+to descend before she reached the kitchen entrance of the elevator. She
+squeezed through the narrow opening and found herself in a stone-flagged
+kitchen. It was empty. A small fire glowed in the grate. Her own tray
+with all the crockery unwashed was on the dresser, and there were the
+remnants of a meal at one end of the plain table. She tiptoed across the
+kitchen to the door. It was bolted top and bottom and locked.
+Fortunately the key was in the lock, and in two minutes she was outside
+in a small courtyard beneath the level of the ground.
+
+One end of the courtyard led past another window, and that she could not
+risk. To her right was a flight of stone steps, and that was obviously
+the safer way. She found herself in a little park which fortunately for
+her was plentifully sprinkled with clumps of rhododendrons, and she
+crept from bush to bush, taking care to keep out of sight of the house.
+She had the telegram and the money in her hand, and her first object was
+to get this outside. It took her twenty minutes to reach the wall. It
+was too high to scale and there was no sign of a ladder. The only way
+out was the little brown door she had seen from her bedroom window, and
+cautiously she made her way back, flitting from bush to bush until she
+came to the place where a clear view of the door and the building to its
+left could be obtained.
+
+The low-roofed shed she had seen was much longer than she had expected
+and evidently had recently been built. Its black face was punctured at
+intervals with square windows, and a roughly painted door to the left of
+the brown garden gate was the only entrance she could see. She looked
+for a key but without hope of finding one. She must take her chance, she
+thought, and a quick run brought her from the cover of the bushes to the
+brown portal which stood between her and liberty.
+
+With trembling hands she slid back the bolts and turned the handle. Her
+heart leapt as it gave a little. Evidently it had not been used for
+years and she found it was only held fast by the gravel which had
+accumulated beneath it.
+
+Eagerly she scraped the gravel aside with her foot and her hand was on
+the knob when she heard a muffled voice behind her. She turned and then
+with a gasp of horror fell back. Standing in the doorway of the shed was
+a thing which was neither man nor beast. It was covered in a wrap which
+had once been white but was now dappled with green. The face and head
+were covered with rubber, two green staring eyes surveyed her, and a
+great snout-like nose was uplifted as in amazement. She was paralysed
+for a moment. For the beastliness of the figure was appalling.
+
+Then realizing that it was merely a man whose face was hidden by a
+hideous mask, she sprang again for the door, but a hand gripped her arm
+and pulled her back. She heard a cheerful whistle from the road without
+and remembering the package in her hand she flung it high over the wall
+and heard its soft thud, and the whistle stop.
+
+Then as the hideous figure slipped his arm about her and pressed a musty
+hand over her mouth she fainted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. BEALE SUGGESTS MARRIAGE
+
+
+"Held up by a gunman?" asked James Kitson incredulously, "why, what do
+you mean?"
+
+"It doesn't sound right, does it?" smiled Beale, "especially after
+McNorton telling us the other day that there was no such thing as a
+gunman in England. Do you remember his long dissertation on the
+law-abiding criminals of this little old country?" he laughed.
+
+"But a gunman," protested Mr. Kitson--"by the way, have you had
+breakfast?"
+
+"Hours ago," replied Beale, "but don't let me interrupt you."
+
+Mr. James Kitson pulled his chair to the table and unfolded his napkin.
+It was almost at this hour that Oliva Cresswell had performed a similar
+act.
+
+"You are not interrupting me," said Kitson, "go on."
+
+Beale was frowning down at deserted Piccadilly which Mr. Kitson's
+palatial suite at the Ritz-Carlton overlooked.
+
+"Eh?" he said absently, "oh yes, the gunman--a sure enough gunman."
+
+He related in a few words his experience of the previous night.
+
+"This man Homo," said Kitson, "is he one of the gang?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"I don't think so. He may be one of van Heerden's ambassadors."
+
+"Ambassadors?"
+
+"I will explain van Heerden's game one of these days and you will
+understand what I mean," said Beale. "No, I don't think that Parson Homo
+is being any more than a gentle knight succouring a distressed lady,
+whether for love of the lady, out of respect for the professor or from a
+general sense of antagonism to all detectives, I can only speculate.
+Anyway, he held me until the lady was out of hearing and presumably out
+of sight. And then there was no need for me to go. I just sat down and
+talked, and a more amiable and cultured gentleman it would be impossible
+to meet."
+
+Kitson looked at his companion through narrowed lids.
+
+"Why, that's not like you, Beale," he said. "I thought you were too hot
+on the scent to waste time."
+
+"So I am," said the other, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets,
+"that's just what I am." He turned suddenly to the older man. "Mr.
+Kitson, I've got to know a little more about John Millinborn's will than
+I know at present."
+
+The lawyer looked up, fixed his glasses and regarded the younger man
+with a troubled look.
+
+"I'm sorry to jump in on you like this, but I'm rattled. I don't
+understand much about the English law though I know that marriages
+aren't as easy to make here in London as they are in our country. But
+here as everywhere else it is fairly difficult to force a girl into
+marriage against her will, and the marriage of course is not good in
+law."
+
+He sat down on the arm of a couch, dangling his hat between his legs,
+and ran his fingers through his hair with a nervous little laugh.
+
+"Here I'm telling you all that I came to ask you."
+
+"Have a cup of tea," said Kitson, with a smile, "everybody in England
+rushes to tea and I hope I shall get you in the habit."
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"You are right about the marriage," Kitson went on, "but I'll give you
+the law on the subject. A marriage can only be solemnized if due notice
+is given by the parties who must be resident in the district where it is
+to take place--three weeks is the period of notice."
+
+"Is there no other way?"
+
+"Yes. By paying special fees and offering a good and sufficient reason a
+faculty can be secured from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or rather from
+his officials, authorizing a marriage without notice. It is called a
+special licence, and the marriage may occur at any hour and at any
+place."
+
+"Is there a register of applications?" asked Beale quickly.
+
+"I've thought of that," nodded the lawyer, "yes, I'm keeping that side
+under observation. It is difficult because officialdom isn't as obliging
+as it might be. My own view is that van Heerden will be married in the
+ordinary way, that is to say by giving notice. To secure his special
+licence he would be obliged to give his own name and be vouched for; he
+can be married in the ordinary way even if he gives a false name, which
+in all probability he will."
+
+"Would the marriage be legal if it was in a false name?"
+
+"Absolutely. In English law you may commit an offence by marrying in a
+wrong name, but it would not invalidate the marriage."
+
+Stanford Beale sat studying the pattern of the carpet.
+
+"Is there any chance of two special licences being issued to marry the
+same girl?" he asked.
+
+"None--why do you ask?"
+
+Beale did not reply immediately.
+
+"Something Homo said last night when I told him frankly that I was
+searching for Miss Cresswell. 'Oh,' said he, 'that's the lady that's
+marrying the doctor.' He wouldn't tell me more. But he gave me an idea
+to make sure that no special licence is issued to van Heerden. I shall
+apply for one myself."
+
+The lawyer stared at him.
+
+"To marry the girl?" he gasped. "But----"
+
+Stanford Beale laughed a little bitterly.
+
+"Say, don't get up in the air, Mr. Kitson--I'm only thinking of Miss
+Cresswell. A special licence in my name would stop one of van Heerden's
+paths to easy money. Tell me, and this is what I came to ask you, under
+Millinborn's will, does the husband benefit directly by the marriage, or
+is he dependent upon what his wife gives him?'
+
+"He benefits directly," said Kitson after a pause, "on his marriage he
+receives exactly one-half of the girl's fortune. That was Millinborn's
+idea. 'Make the husband independent,' he said, 'do not put him in the
+humiliating position of dependence on his wife's generosity, and there
+will be a chance of happiness for them both.'"
+
+"I see--of course, van Heerden knows that. He has only to produce a
+marriage certificate to scoop in two and a half million dollars--that is
+half a million in English money. This is the secret of it all. He wants
+money immediately, and under the terms of the will----?"
+
+"He gets it," said Kitson. "If he came to me to-morrow with proof of his
+marriage, even if I knew that he had coerced the girl into marriage, I
+must give him his share--van Heerden was pretty thorough when he put my
+dying friend through his examination." His face hardened. "Heavens, I'd
+give every penny I had in the world to bring that fiend to the gallows,
+Beale!"
+
+His voice shook, and rising abruptly he walked to the window. Presently
+he turned. "I think there is something in your idea. Get the licence."
+
+"I will--and marry her," said Beale quickly.
+
+"Marry her--I don't quite understand you?"
+
+For the first time there was suspicion in his voice.
+
+"Mr. Kitson, I'm going to put all my cards on the table," said Beale
+quietly, "will you sit down a moment? There are certain facts which we
+cannot ignore. Fact one is that Oliva Cresswell is in the hands of a man
+who is absolutely unscrupulous, but has no other object in view than
+marriage. Her beauty, her charm, all the attractive qualities which
+appeal to most men and to all brutes have no appeal for him--to him she
+is just a money proposition. If he can't marry her, she has no further
+interest for him."
+
+"I see that," agreed the lawyer, "but----"
+
+"Wait, please. If we knew where she was we could stop the marriage and
+indict van Heerden--but I've an idea that we shan't locate her until it
+is too late or nearly too late. I can't go hunting with a pack of
+policemen. I must play a lone hand, or nearly a lone hand. When I find
+her I must be in a position to marry her without losing a moment."
+
+"You mean to marry her to foil van Heerden, and after--to dissolve the
+marriage?" asked the lawyer, shaking his head. "I don't like that
+solution, Beale--I tell you frankly, I don't like it. You're a good man
+and I have every faith in you, but if I consented, even though I were
+confident that you would play fair, which I am, I should feel that I had
+betrayed John Millinborn's trust. It isn't because it is you, my son,"
+he said kindly enough, "but if you were the Archangel Gabriel I'd kick
+at that plan. Marriage is a difficult business to get out of once you
+are in it, especially in this country."
+
+Beale did not interrupt the older man.
+
+"Right, and now if you've finished I'll tell you my scheme," he said,
+"as I see it there's only a ghost of a chance of our saving this girl
+from marriage. I've done my best and we--McNorton and I--have taken all
+the facts before a judge this morning. We got a special interview with
+the idea of securing a warrant for van Heerden's arrest. But there is no
+evidence to convict him on any single charge. We cannot connect him with
+the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, and although I pointed out that van
+Heerden admits that he knows where the girl is, the judge said, fairly I
+thought, that there was no law which compelled a man to divulge the
+address of his fiancee to one who was a possible rival. The girl is of
+an age when she can do as she wishes, and as I understand the matter you
+have no legal status as a guardian."
+
+"None," said James Kitson, "that is our weak point. I am merely the
+custodian of her money. Officially I am supposed to be ignorant of the
+fact that Oliva Cresswell is Oliva Predeaux, the heiress."
+
+"Therefore our hands are tied," concluded Beale quietly. "Don't you see
+that my plan is the only one--but I haven't told you what it is. There's
+a man, a criminal, this Parson Homo who can help; I am satisfied that he
+does not know where the girl is--but he'll help for a consideration. As
+a matter of fact, he was pulled again. I am seeing him this afternoon."
+
+Mr. Kitson frowned.
+
+"The gunman--how can he help you?"
+
+"I will tell you. This man, as I say, is known to the police as Parson
+Homo. Apparently he is an unfrocked priest, one who has gone under. He
+still preserves the resemblance to a gentleman"--he spoke slowly and
+deliberately; "in decent clothes he would look like a parson. I propose
+that he shall marry me to Miss Cresswell. The marriage will be a fake,
+but neither the girl nor van Heerden will know this. If my surmise is
+right, when van Heerden finds she is married he will take no further
+steps--except, perhaps," he smiled, "to make her a widow. Sooner or
+later we are bound to get him under lock and key, and then we can tell
+Miss Cresswell the truth."
+
+"In other words, you intend breaking the law and committing a serious
+offence," said Kitson, shaking his head. "I can't be a party to
+that--besides, she may not marry you."
+
+"I see that danger--van Heerden is a mighty clever fellow. He may be
+married before I trace them."
+
+"You say that Homo doesn't know about the girl, what does he know?"
+
+"He has heard of van Heerden. He has heard probably from the girl Hilda
+Glaum that van Heerden is getting married--the underworld do not get
+their news out of special editions--he probably knows too that van
+Heerden is engaged in some swindle which is outside the parson's line of
+business."
+
+"Will he help you?"
+
+"Sure," Beale said with quiet confidence, "the man is broke and
+desperate. The police watch him like a cat, and would get him sooner or
+later. McNorton told me that much. I have offered him passage to
+Australia and L500, and he is ready to jump at it."
+
+"You have explained the scheme?"
+
+"I had to," confessed Beale, "there was no time to be lost. To my
+surprise he didn't like it. It appears that even a double-dyed crook has
+scruples, and even when I told him the whole of my plan he still didn't
+like it, but eventually agreed. He has gone to Whitechapel to get the
+necessary kit. I am putting him up in my flat. Of course, it may not be
+necessary," he went on, "but somehow I think it will be."
+
+Kitson spread out his hands in despair.
+
+"I shall have to consent," he said, "the whole thing was a mistake from
+the beginning. I trust you, Stanford," he went on, looking the other in
+the eye, "you have no feeling beyond an ordinary professional interest
+in this young lady?"
+
+Beale dropped his eyes.
+
+"If I said that, Mr. Kitson, I should be telling a lie," he said
+quietly. "I have a very deep interest in Miss Cresswell, but that is not
+going to make any difference to me and she will never know."
+
+He left soon after this and went back to his rooms. At four o'clock he
+received a visitor. Parson Homo, cleanly shaved and attired in a
+well-fitting black coat and white choker, seemed more real to the
+detective than the Parson Homo he had met on the previous night.
+
+"You look the part all right," said Beale.
+
+"I suppose I do," said the other shortly; "what am I to do next?"
+
+"You stay here. I have made up a bed for you in my study," said Beale.
+
+"I would like to know a little more of this before I go any further,"
+Homo said, "there are many reasons why I want information."
+
+"I have told you the story," said Beale patiently, "and I am going to
+say right here that I do not intend telling you any more. You carry this
+thing through and I'll pay you what I agreed. Nobody will be injured by
+your deception, that I promise you."
+
+"That doesn't worry me so much," said the other coolly, "as----"
+
+There came a knock at the door, an agitated hurried knock, and Beale
+immediately answered it. It was McNorton, and from force of habit Parson
+Homo drew back into the shadows.
+
+"All right, Parson," said McNorton, "I knew you were here. What do you
+make of this?"
+
+He turned to Beale and laid on the table a piece of paper which had been
+badly crumpled and which he now smoothed out. It was the top half of a
+telegraph form, the lower half had been torn away.
+
+"'To Belocity, London,'" Beale read aloud.
+
+"That's you," interrupted McNorton, and the other nodded.
+
+"'To Belocity, London,'" he read slowly. "'Am imprisoned at Deans----'"
+
+At this point the remainder of the message had been torn off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GOOD HERR STARDT
+
+
+"Where is the rest?" said Beale.
+
+"That's the lot," replied McNorton grimly. "It's the only information
+you will get from this source for twenty-four hours."
+
+"But I don't understand, it is undoubtedly Miss Cresswell's
+handwriting."
+
+"And 'Belocity' is as undoubtedly your telegraphic address. This paper,"
+he went on, "was taken from a drunken tramp--'hobo' you call 'em, don't
+you?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At Kingston-on-Thames," said McNorton--"the man was picked up in the
+street, fighting drunk, and taken to the police station, where he
+developed delirium tremens. Apparently he has been on the jag all the
+week, and to-day's booze finished him off. The local inspector in
+searching him found this piece of paper in his pocket and connected it
+with the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, the matter being fresh in his
+mind, as only this morning we had circulated a new description
+throughout the home counties. He got me on the 'phone and sent a
+constable up to town with the paper this afternoon."
+
+"H'm," said Beale, biting his lips thoughtfully, "she evidently gave the
+man the telegram, telling him to dispatch it. She probably gave him
+money, too, which was the explanation of his final drunk."
+
+"I don't think that is the case," said McNorton, "he had one lucid
+moment at the station when he was cross-examined as to where he got the
+money to get drunk, and he affirmed that he found it wrapped up in a
+piece of paper. That sounds true to me. She either dropped it from a car
+or threw it from a house."
+
+"Is the man very ill?"
+
+"Pretty bad," said the other, "you will get nothing out of him before
+the morning. The doctors had to dope him to get him quiet, and he will
+be some time before he is right."
+
+He looked up at the other occupant of the room.
+
+"Well, Parson, you are helping Mr. Beale, I understand?"
+
+"Yes," said the other easily.
+
+"Returning to your old profession, I see," said McNorton.
+
+Parson Homo drew himself up a little stiffly.
+
+"If you have anything against me you can pull me for it," he said
+insolently: "that's your business. As to the profession I followed
+before I started on that career of crime which brought me into contact
+with the crude representatives of what is amusingly called 'the law,' is
+entirely my affair."
+
+"Don't get your wool off, Parson," said the other good-humouredly. "You
+have lost your sense of humour."
+
+"That's where you are wrong," said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my
+sense of decency."
+
+McNorton turned to the other.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he asked.
+
+"'I am imprisoned at Deans,'" repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in
+this country?"
+
+"There are a dozen of them," replied the police chief: "there's
+Deansgate in Manchester, Deanston in Perth, Deansboro', Deans
+Abbey--I've been looking them up, there is a whole crowd of them."
+
+"Are there any 'Deans' near Kingston?"
+
+"None," replied the other.
+
+"Then it is obviously the name of a house," said Beale. "I have noticed
+that in England you are in the habit of naming rather than numbering
+your houses, especially in the suburbs." He looked across to Parson
+Homo, "Can you help?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"If I were a vulgar burglar I might assist you," he said, "but my branch
+of the profession does not take me to the suburbs."
+
+"We will get a Kingston Directory and go through it," said McNorton; "we
+have one on the file at Scotland Yard. If----"
+
+Beale suddenly raised his hand to enjoin silence: he had heard a
+familiar step in the corridor outside.
+
+"That's van Heerden," he said in a low voice, "he has been out all the
+morning."
+
+"Has he been shadowed?" asked McNorton in the same tone.
+
+"My man lost him," he said.
+
+He tiptoed along the passage and stood listening behind the door.
+Presently he heard the doctor's door close and came back.
+
+"I have had the best sleuth in America trailing him," he said, "and he
+has slipped him every time."
+
+"Anyway," said McNorton, "this telegram disposes of the idea that she
+has gone to Liverpool. It also settles the question as to whether she
+went of her own free will. If his name were on that telegram," he said
+thoughtfully, "I would take a risk and pull him in."
+
+"I will give you something bigger to pull him for," Beale said, "once I
+have placed Miss Cresswell in safety."
+
+"The Green Rust?" smiled the police chief.
+
+"The Green Rust," said Beale, but he did not smile, "that's van
+Heerden's big game. The abduction of Miss Cresswell is merely a means to
+an end. He wants her money and may want it very badly. The more urgent
+is his need the sooner that marriage takes place."
+
+"But there is no clergyman in England who would marry them"--it was Homo
+who interrupted. "My dear friend, that sort of thing is not done except
+in story books. If the woman refuses her consent the marriage cannot
+possibly occur. As I understand, the lady is not likely to be cowed."
+
+"That is what I am afraid of," said Beale, "she is all pluck----"
+
+He stopped, for he had heard the doctor's door close. In three strides
+he had crossed the hallway and was in the corridor, confronting his
+suave neighbour. Dr. van Heerden, carefully attired, was pulling on his
+gloves and smiled into the stern face of his rival.
+
+"Well," he asked pleasantly, "any news of Miss Cresswell?"
+
+"If I had any news of Miss Cresswell you would not be here," said Beale.
+
+"But how interesting," drawled the doctor. "Where should I be?"
+
+"You would be under lock and key, my friend," said Beale.
+
+The doctor threw back his head and laughed softly.
+
+"What a lover!" he said, "and how reluctant to accept his dismissal! It
+may ease your mind to know that Miss Cresswell, whom I hope very soon to
+call Mrs. van Heerden, is perfectly happy, and is very annoyed at your
+persistence. I had a telegram from her this morning, begging me to come
+to Liverpool at the earliest opportunity."
+
+"That's a lie," said Beale quietly, "but one lie more or less, I
+suppose, doesn't count."
+
+"A thoroughly immoral view to take," said the doctor with much severity,
+"but I see there is nothing to be gained by arguing with you, and I can
+only make one request."
+
+Beale said nothing but stood waiting.
+
+"It is this," said the doctor, choosing his words with great care: "that
+you call off the gentleman who has been dogging my footsteps to-day. It
+was amusing at first but now it is becoming annoying. Some of my
+patients have complained of this man watching their houses."
+
+"You've not seen a patient to-day, van Heerden," said Beale, "and,
+anyway, I guess you had better get used to being shadowed. It isn't your
+first experience."
+
+The doctor looked at him under lowered lids and smiled again.
+
+"I could save your man a great deal of trouble," he said, "and myself
+considerable exertion by giving him a list of the places where I intend
+calling."
+
+"He will find that out for himself," said Beale.
+
+"I wish him greater success than he has had," replied the other, and
+passed on, descending the stairs slowly.
+
+Beale went back to his flat, passed to his bedroom and looked down into
+the street. He made a signal to a man at the corner and received an
+almost imperceptible answer. Then he returned to the two men.
+
+"This fellow is too clever for us, I am afraid, and London with its
+tubes, its underground stations and taxi-cabs is a pretty difficult
+proposition."
+
+"I suppose your man lost him in the tube," said McNorton.
+
+"There are two ways down, the elevator and the stairs, and it is mighty
+difficult to follow a man unless you know which way he is going."
+
+"But you were interrupted at an interesting moment. What are you going
+to tell us about the Green Rust?"
+
+"I can only tell you this," said Beale, "that the Green Rust is the
+greatest conspiracy against the civilized world that has ever been
+hatched."
+
+He looked sharply at Homo.
+
+"Don't look at me," said the Parson, "I know nothing about it,
+unless----" He stopped and frowned. "The Green Rust," he repeated, "is
+that old man Heyler's secret?"
+
+"He's in it," said Beale shortly.
+
+"Is it a swindle of some kind?" asked the Parson curiously. "It never
+struck me that Heyler was that kind of man."
+
+"There is no swindle in it so far as Heyler's concerned," said Beale,
+"it is something bigger than a swindle."
+
+A telephone bell rang and he took up the receiver and listened, only
+interjecting a query or two. Then he hung up the instrument.
+
+"It is as I thought," he said: "the doctor's slipped again. Had a car
+waiting for him in Oxford Street and when he saw there were no taxi-cabs
+about, jumped in and was driven eastward."
+
+"Did you get the number of the car?" asked McNorton.
+
+Beale smiled.
+
+"That's not much use," he said, "he's probably got two or three
+number-plates."
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"I'll go along to Kingston," he said.
+
+"I shan't be able to come with you," said McNorton, "I have a meeting
+with the commissioner at five."
+
+"Before you go," remarked Beale, "you might put your signature to this
+declaration of my _bona fides_."
+
+He laid on the table a blue foolscap blank.
+
+"What's this?" asked the surprised McNorton, "an application for a
+special licence--are you going to be married?"
+
+"I hope so," said the other cautiously.
+
+"You don't seem very cheerful about it. I presume you want me to testify
+to the urgency of the case. I am probably perjuring myself." He signed
+his name with a flourish. "When are you getting the licence and what's
+the hurry?"
+
+"I am getting the licence to-morrow," said Beale.
+
+"And the lady's name is----?"
+
+"I thought you had noticed it," smiled the other, deftly blotting and
+folding the form.
+
+"Not Miss Cresswell?" demanded the police chief in surprise.
+
+"Miss Cresswell it is."
+
+"But I thought----"
+
+"There are circumstances which may be brought to your official notice,
+McNorton," said the detective, "for the present it is necessary to keep
+my plan a secret."
+
+"Has it anything to do with the Green Rust?" asked the other jokingly.
+
+"A great deal to do with the Green Rust."
+
+"Well, I'll get along," said McNorton. "I will telephone the Kingston
+police to give you all the assistance possible, but I am afraid you will
+learn nothing from the tramp till the morning, and perhaps not then."
+
+He took his leave soon after.
+
+"Now, Homo, it is up to you and me," said Beale. "You will have to keep
+close to me after to-morrow. Make yourself at home here until I come
+back."
+
+"One moment," said Homo, as Beale rose and gathered up his hat and
+gloves to depart. "Before you go I want you to understand clearly that I
+am taking on this job because it offers me a chance that I haven't had
+since I fell from grace, if you will excuse the _cliche_."
+
+"That I understand," said Beale.
+
+"I may be doing you a very bad turn."
+
+"I'll take that risk," said Beale.
+
+"On your own head be it," said Homo, his hard face creased in a
+fleeting smile.
+
+Beale's car was waiting, but his departure was unexpectedly delayed. As
+he passed down the stairs into the vestibule he saw a stranger standing
+near the door reading the enamelled name-plates affixed to the wall.
+Something in his appearance arrested Beale. The man was well dressed in
+the sense that his clothes were new and well cut, but the pattern of the
+cloth, no less than the startling yellowness of the boots and that
+unmistakable sign-manual of the foreigner, the shape and colour of the
+cravat, stamped him as being neither American nor British.
+
+"Can I be of any assistance?" asked Beale. "Are you looking for
+somebody?"
+
+The visitor turned a pink face to him.
+
+"You are very good," he said with the faint trace of an accent. "I
+understand that Doctor van Heerden lives here?"
+
+"Yes, he lives here," said Beale, "but I am afraid he is not at home."
+
+He thought it might be a patient or a summons to a patient.
+
+"Not at home?" The man's face fell. "But how unfortunate! Could you tell
+me where I can find him, my business is immediate and I have come a long
+way."
+
+From Germany, guessed Beale. The mail train was due at Charing Cross
+half an hour before.
+
+"I am a friend of Doctor van Heerden and possibly I can assist you. Is
+the business very important? Does it concern," he hesitated, "the Green
+Rust?"
+
+He spoke the last sentence in German and the man started and looked at
+him with mingled suspicion and uncertainty.
+
+"It is a matter of the greatest importance," he repeated, "it is of
+vital importance."
+
+He spoke in German.
+
+"About the Green Rust?" asked Beale, in the same language.
+
+"I do not know anything of the Green Rust," said the man hurriedly. "I
+am merely the bearer of a communication which is of the greatest
+importance." He repeated the words--"the greatest importance."
+
+"If you give me the letter," said Beale, "I will see that it is sent on
+to him," and he held out his hand with the assurance of one who shared
+the dearest secrets of the doctor. The stranger's hand wandered to his
+breast pocket, but came back empty.
+
+"No, it must be given--I must see the doctor himself," he said. "He does
+not expect me and I will wait."
+
+Beale thought quickly.
+
+"Well, perhaps you will come upstairs to my flat and wait," he said
+genially, and led the way, and the man, still showing evidence of
+uneasiness, was ushered into his room, where the sight of the Rev.
+Parson Homo tended to reassure him.
+
+Would he have tea? He would not have tea. Would he take coffee? He would
+not take coffee. A glass of wine perhaps? No, he did not drink wine nor
+beer, nor would he take any refreshment whatever.
+
+"My man," thought the desperate Beale, "I either chloroform you or hit
+you on the head with the poker, but I am going to see that letter."
+
+As if divining his thought, but placing thereon a wrong construction,
+the man said:
+
+"I should avail myself of your kindness to deliver my letter to Doctor
+van Heerden, but of what service would it be since it is only a letter
+introducing me to the good doctor?"
+
+"Oh, is that all?" said Beale, disappointed, and somehow he knew the man
+spoke the truth.
+
+"That is all," he said, "except of course my message, which is verbal.
+My name is Stardt, you may have heard the doctor speak of me. We have
+had some correspondence."
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember," lied Beale.
+
+"The message is for him alone, of course, as you will understand, and if
+I deliver it to you," smiled Herr Stardt, "you should not understand it,
+because it is one word."
+
+"One word?" said Beale blankly. "A code--hang!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PAWN TICKET
+
+
+Oliva Cresswell awoke to consciousness as she was being carried up the
+stairs of the house. She may have recovered sooner, for she retained a
+confused impression of being laid down amidst waving grasses and of
+hearing somebody grunt that she was heavier than he thought.
+
+Also she remembered as dimly the presence of Dr. van Heerden standing
+over her, and he was wearing a long grey dust-coat.
+
+As her captor kicked open the door of her room she scrambled out of his
+arms and leant against the bed-rail for support.
+
+"I'm all right," she said breathlessly, "it was foolish to faint,
+but--but you frightened me."
+
+The man grinned, and seemed about to speak, but a sharp voice from the
+landing called him, and he went out, slamming the door behind him. She
+crossed to the bath-room, bathed her face in cold water and felt better,
+though she was still a little giddy.
+
+Then she sat down to review the situation, and in that review two
+figures came alternately into prominence--van Heerden and Beale.
+
+She was an eminently sane girl. She had had the beginnings of what might
+have been an unusually fine education, had it not been interrupted by
+the death of her foster-mother. She had, too, the advantage which the
+finished young lady does not possess, of having grafted to the wisdom of
+the schools the sure understanding of men and things which personal
+contact with struggling humanity can alone give to us.
+
+The great problems of life had been sprung upon her with all their
+hideous realism, and through all she had retained her poise and her
+clear vision. Many of the phenomena represented by man's attitude to
+woman she could understand, but that a man who admittedly did not love
+her and had no other apparent desire than to rid himself of the incubus
+of a wife as soon as he was wed, should wish to marry her was
+incomprehensible. That he had already published the banns of her
+marriage left her gasping at his audacity. Strange how her thoughts
+leapt all the events of the morning: the wild rush to escape, the
+struggle with the hideously masked man, and all that went before or
+followed, and went back to the night before.
+
+Somehow she knew that van Heerden had told her the truth, and that there
+was behind this act of his a deeper significance than she could grasp.
+She remembered what he had said about Beale, and flushed.
+
+"You're silly, Matilda," she said to herself, employing the term of
+address which she reserved for moments of self-depreciation, "here is a
+young man you have only met half a dozen times, who is probably a very
+nice married policeman with a growing family and you are going hot and
+cold at the suggestion that you're in love with him." She shook her head
+reproachfully.
+
+And yet upon Beale all her thoughts were centred, and however they might
+wander it was to Beale they returned. She could analyse that buoyancy
+which had asserted itself, that confidence which had suddenly become a
+mental armour, which repelled every terrifying thought, to this faith
+she had in a man, who in a few weeks before she had looked upon as an
+incorrigible drunkard.
+
+She had time for thought, and really, though this she did not
+acknowledge, she desperately needed the occupation of that thought. What
+was Beale's business? Why did he employ her to copy out this list of
+American and Canadian statistics? Why did he want to know all these
+hotels, their proprietors, the chief of the police and the like? She
+wished she had her papers and books so that she might go on extracting
+that interminable list.
+
+What would van Heerden do now? Would her attempted escape change his
+plans? How would he overcome the difficulty of marrying a girl who was
+certain to denounce him in the presence of so independent a witness as a
+clergyman? She would die before she married him, she told herself.
+
+She could not rest, and walked about the room examining the framed
+prints and looking at the books, and occasionally walking to the glass
+above the dressing-chest to see if any sign was left of the red mark on
+her cheek where van Heerden's hand had fallen. This exercise gave her a
+curious satisfaction, and when she saw that the mark had subsided and
+was blending more to the colour of her skin she felt disappointed.
+Startled, she analysed this curious mental attitude and again came to
+Beale. She wanted Beale to see the place. She wanted Beale's sympathy.
+She wanted Beale's rage--she was sure he would rage.
+
+She laughed to herself and for want of other and better amusement walked
+to the drawers in the dressing-bureau and examined their contents. They
+were empty and unlocked save one, which refused to respond to her tug.
+She remembered she had a small bunch of keys in her bag.
+
+"I am going to be impertinent. Forgive the liberty," she said, as she
+felt the lock give to the first attempt.
+
+She pulled the drawer open. It contained a few articles of feminine
+attire and a thick black leather portfolio. She lifted this out, laid it
+on the table and opened it. It was filled with foolscap. Written on the
+cover was the word "Argentine" and somehow the writing was familiar to
+her. It was a bold hand, obviously feminine.
+
+"Where have I seen that before?" she asked, and knit her forehead.
+
+She turned the first leaf and read:
+
+"Alsigar Hotel, Fournos, Proprietor, Miguel Porcorini. Index 2."
+
+Her mouth opened in astonishment and she ran down the list. She took out
+another folder. It was marked "Canada," and she turned the leaves
+rapidly. She recognized this work. It was the same work that Beale had
+given to her, a list of the hotels, their proprietors and means of
+conveyance, but there was no reference to the police. And then it dawned
+upon her. An unusually long description produced certain characteristics
+of writing which she recognized.
+
+"Hilda Glaum!" she said. "I wonder what this means!"
+
+She examined the contents of the drawer again and some of them puzzled
+her. Not the little stack of handkerchiefs, the folded collars and the
+like. If Hilda Glaum was in the habit of visiting Deans Folly and used
+this room it was natural that these things should be here. If this were
+her bureau the little carton of nibs and the spare note book were to be
+expected. It was the steel box which set her wondering. This she
+discovered in the far corner of the drawer. If she could have imagined
+anything so fantastic she might have believed that the box had been
+specially made to hold the thing it contained and preserve it from the
+dangers of fire. The lid, which closed with a spring catch, released by
+the pressure of a tiny button, was perfectly fitted so that the box was
+in all probability air-tight.
+
+She opened it without difficulty. The sides were lined with what seemed
+to be at first sight thick cardboard but which proved on closer
+inspection to be asbestos. She opened it with a sense of eager
+anticipation, but her face fell. Save for a tiny square blue envelope at
+the bottom, the box was empty!
+
+She lifted it in her hand to shake out the envelope and it was then that
+the idea occurred to her that the box had been made for the envelope,
+which refused to budge until she lifted one end with a hairpin.
+
+It was unsealed, and she slipped in her finger and pulled out--a pawn
+ticket!
+
+She had an inclination to laugh which she checked. She examined the
+ticket curiously. It announced the fact that Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros.,
+of Commercial Road, London, had advanced ten shillings on a "Gents'
+Silver Hunter Watch," and the pledge had been made in the name of van
+Heerden!
+
+She gazed at it bewildered. He was not a man who needed ten shillings or
+ten dollars or ten pounds. Why should he pledge a watch and why having
+pledged it should he keep the ticket with such care?
+
+Oliva hesitated a moment, then slipped the ticket from its cover, put
+back the envelope at the bottom of the box and closed the lid. She found
+a hiding-place for the little square pasteboard before she returned the
+box and portfolio to the drawer and locked it.
+
+There was a tap at the door and hastily she replaced the key in her bag.
+
+"Come in," she said.
+
+She recognized the man who stood in the doorway as he who had carried
+her back to the room.
+
+There was a strangeness in his bearing which made her uneasy, a certain
+subdued hilarity which suggested drunkenness.
+
+"Don't make a noise," he whispered with a stifled chuckle, "if Gregory
+hears he'll raise fire."
+
+She saw that the key was in the lock on the outside of the door and this
+she watched. But he made no attempt to withdraw it and closed the door
+behind him softly.
+
+"My name is Bridgers," he whispered, "van Heerden has told you about
+me--Horace Bridgers, do you----?"
+
+He took a little tortoiseshell box from the pocket of his frayed
+waistcoat and opened it with a little kick of his middle finger. It was
+half-full of white powder that glittered in a stray ray of sunlight.
+"Try a sniff," he begged eagerly, "and all your troubles will
+go--phutt!"
+
+"Thank you, no"--she shook her head, looking at him with a perplexed
+smile--"I don't know what it is."
+
+"It's the white terror," he chuckled again, "better than the green--not
+so horribly musty as the green, eh?"
+
+"I'm not in the mood for terrors of any kind," she said, with a
+half-smile. She wondered why he had come, and had a momentary hope that
+he was ignorant of van Heerden's character.
+
+"All right"--he stuffed the box back into his waistcoat
+pocket--"_you're_ the loser, you'll never find heaven on earth!"
+
+She waited.
+
+All the time he was speaking, it seemed to her that he was on the _qui
+vive_ for some interruption from below. He would stop in his speech to
+turn a listening ear to the door. Moreover, she was relieved to see he
+made no attempt to advance any farther into the room. That he was under
+the influence of some drug she guessed. His eyes glittered with
+unnatural brilliance, his hands, discoloured and uncleanly, moved
+nervously and were never still.
+
+"I'm Bridgers," he said again. "I'm van Heerden's best man--rather a
+come down for the best analytical chemist that the school ever turned
+out, eh? Doing odd jobs for a dirty Deutscher!" He walked to the door,
+opened it and listened, then tiptoed across the room to her.
+
+"You know," he whispered, "you're van Heerden's girl--what is the game?"
+
+"What is----?" she stammered.
+
+"What is the game? What is it all about? I've tried to pump Gregory and
+Milsom, but they're mysterious. Curse all mysteries, my dear. What is
+the game? Why are they sending men to America, Canada, Australia and
+India? Come along and be a pal! Tell me! I've seen the office, I know
+all about it. Thousands of sealed envelopes filled with steamship
+tickets and money. Thousands of telegraph forms already addressed. You
+don't fool me!" He hissed the last words almost in her face. "Why is he
+employing the crocks and the throw-outs of science? Perrilli, Maxon,
+Boyd, Heyler--and me? If the game's square why doesn't he take the new
+men from the schools?"
+
+She shook her head, being, by now, less interested in such revelations
+as he might make, than in her own personal comfort. For his attitude was
+grown menacing ... then the great idea came to her. Evidently this man
+knew nothing of the circumstances under which she had come to the house.
+To him she was a wilful but willing assistant of the doctor, who for
+some reason or other it had been necessary to place under restraint.
+
+"I will tell you everything if you will take me back to my home," she
+said. "I cannot give you proofs here."
+
+She saw suspicion gather in his eyes. Then he laughed.
+
+"That won't wash," he sneered--"you know it all. I can't leave here," he
+said; "besides, you told me last time that there was nothing. I used to
+watch you working away at night," he went on to the girl's amazement.
+"I've sat looking at you for hours, writing and writing and writing."
+
+She understood now. She and Hilda Glaum were of about the same build,
+and she was mistaken for Hilda by this bemused man who had, in all
+probability, never seen the other girl face to face.
+
+"What made you run away?" he asked suddenly; but with a sudden resolve
+she brought him back to the subject he had started to discuss.
+
+"What is the use of my telling you?" she asked. "You know as much as I."
+
+"Only bits," he replied eagerly, "but I don't know van Heerden's game. I
+know why he's marrying this other girl, everybody knows that. When is
+the wedding?"
+
+"What other girl?" she asked.
+
+"Cresswell or Predeaux, whatever she calls herself," said Bridgers
+carelessly. "She was a store girl, wasn't she?"
+
+"But"--she tried to speak calmly--"why do you think he wants to marry
+her?"
+
+He laughed softly.
+
+"Don't be silly," he said, "you can't fool me. Everybody knows she's
+worth a million."
+
+"Worth a million?" she gasped.
+
+"Worth a million." He smacked his lips and fumbled for the little box in
+his waistcoat pocket. "Try a sniff--you'll know what it feels like to be
+old man Millinborn's heiress."
+
+There was a sound in the hall below and he turned with an exaggerated
+start (she thought it theatrical but could not know of the jangled
+nerves of the drug-soddened man which magnified all sound to an
+intensity which was almost painful).
+
+He opened the door and slid out--and did not close the door behind him.
+
+Swiftly she followed, and as she reached the landing saw his head
+disappear down the stairs. She was in a blind panic; a thousand formless
+terrors gripped her and turned her resolute soul to water. She could
+have screamed her relief when she saw that the sliding door was
+half-open--the man had not stopped to close it--and she passed through
+and down the first flight. He had vanished before she reached the
+half-way landing and the hall below was empty. It was a wide hall,
+stone-flagged, with a glass door between her and the open portal.
+
+She flew down the stairs, pulled open the door and ran straight into van
+Heerden's arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE JEW OF CRACOW
+
+
+If there were committed in London the crime of the century--a crime so
+tremendous that the names of the chief actors in this grisly drama were
+on the lips of every man, woman and talkative child in Europe--you might
+walk into a certain department of Scotland Yard with the assurance that
+you would not meet within the confining walls of that bureau any police
+officer who was interested in the slightest, or who, indeed, had even
+heard of the occurrence save by accident. This department is known as
+the Parley Voos or P.V. Department, and concerns itself only in
+suspicious events beyond the territorial waters of Great Britain and
+Ireland. Its body is on the Thames Embankment, but its soul is at the
+Central Office, or at the Surete or even at the Yamen of the police
+minister of Pekin.
+
+It is sublimely ignorant of the masters of crime who dwell beneath the
+shadows of the Yard, but it could tell you, without stopping to look up
+reference, not only the names of the known gunmen of New York, but the
+composition of almost every secret society in China.
+
+A Pole had a quarrel with a Jew in the streets of Cracow, and they
+quarrelled over the only matter which is worthy of quarrel in that part
+of Poland. The sum in dispute was the comparatively paltry one of 260
+Kronen, but when the Jew was taken in a dying condition to the hospital
+he made a statement which was so curious that the Chief of Police in
+Cracow sent it on to Vienna and Vienna sent it to Berne and Berne
+scratched its chin thoughtfully and sent it forward to Paris, where it
+was distributed to Rio de Janeiro, New York, and London.
+
+The Assistant Chief of the P.V. Department came out of his room and
+drifted aimlessly into the uncomfortable bureau of Mr. McNorton.
+
+"There's a curious yarn through from Cracow," he said, "which might
+interest your friend Beale."
+
+"What is it?" asked McNorton, who invariably found the stories of the
+P.V. Department fascinating but profitless.
+
+"A man was murdered," said the P.V. man lightly, as though that were the
+least important feature of the story, "but before he pegged out he made
+a will or an assignment of his property to his son, in the course of
+which he said that none of his stocks--he was a corn factor--were to be
+sold under one thousand Kronen a bushel. That's about L30."
+
+"Corn at L30 a bushel?" said McNorton. "Was he delirious?"
+
+"Not at all," said the other. "He was a very well-known man in Cracow,
+one Zibowski, who during the late war was principal buying agent for the
+German Government. The Chief of the Police at Cracow apparently asked
+him if he wasn't suffering from illusions, and the man then made a
+statement that the German Government had an option on all the grain in
+Galicia, Hungary and the Ukraine at a lower price. Zibowski held out for
+better terms. It is believed that he was working with a member of the
+German Government who made a fortune in the war out of army contracts.
+In fact, he as good as let this out just before he died, when he spoke
+in his delirium of a wonderful invention which was being worked on
+behalf of the German Government, an invention called the Green Rust."
+
+McNorton whistled.
+
+"Is that all?" he said.
+
+"That's all," said the P.V. man. "I seem to remember that Beale had made
+one or two mysterious references to the Rust. Where is he now?"
+
+"He left town last night," replied McNorton.
+
+"Can you get in touch with him?"
+
+The other shook his head.
+
+"I suppose you are sending on a copy of this communication to the
+Cabinet," he said--"it may be rather serious. Whatever the scheme is, it
+is being worked in London, and van Heerden is the chief operator."
+
+He took down his hat and went out in search of Kitson, whom he found in
+the lobby of the hotel. James Kitson came toward him eagerly.
+
+"Have you news of Beale?"
+
+"He was at Kingston this morning," said McNorton, "with Parson Homo, but
+he had left. I was on the 'phone to the inspector at Kingston, who did
+not know very much and could give me no very definite news as to whether
+Beale had made his discovery. He interviewed the tramp early this
+morning, but apparently extracted very little that was helpful. As a
+matter of fact, I came to you to ask if he had got in touch with you."
+
+Kitson shook his head.
+
+"I want to see him about his Green Rust scare--Beale has gone
+single-handed into this matter," said the superintendent, shaking his
+head, "and he has played the lone game a little too long."
+
+"Is it very serious?"
+
+"It may be an international matter," replied McNorton gravely, "all that
+we know at present is this. A big plot is on foot to tamper with the
+food supplies of the world and the chief plotter is van Heerden. Beale
+knows more about the matter than any of us, but he only gives us
+occasional glimpses of the real situation. I have been digging out van
+Heerden's record without, however, finding anything very incriminating.
+Up to a point he seems to have been a model citizen, though his
+associates were not always of the best. He has been seen in the company
+of at least three people with a bad history. Milsom, a doctor, convicted
+of murder in the 'nineties; Bridgers, an American chemist with two
+convictions for illicit trading in drugs; Gregory--who seems to be his
+factotum and general assistant, convicted in Manchester for saccharine
+smuggling; and a girl called Glaum, who is an alien, charged during the
+war for failing to register."
+
+"But against van Heerden?"
+
+"Nothing. He has travelled a great deal in America and on the Continent.
+He was in Spain a few years ago and was suspected of being associated
+with the German Embassy. His association with the Millinborn murder you
+know."
+
+"Yes, I know that," said James Kitson bitterly.
+
+"Beale will have to tell us all he knows," McNorton went on, "and
+probably we can tell him something he doesn't know; namely, that van
+Heerden conducts a pretty expensive correspondence by cable with all
+parts of the world. Something has happened in Cracow which gives a value
+to all Beale's suspicions."
+
+Briefly he related the gist of the story which had reached him that
+morning.
+
+"It is incredible," said Kitson when the chief had finished. "It would
+be humanly impossible for the world to buy at that price. And there is
+no reason for it. It happens that I am interested in a milling
+corporation and I know that the world's crops are good--in fact, the
+harvest will be well above the average. I should say that the Cracow Jew
+was talking in delirium."
+
+But McNorton smiled indulgently.
+
+"I hope you're right," he said. "I hope the whole thing is a mare's nest
+and for once in my life I trust that the police clues are as wrong as
+hell. But, anyway, van Heerden is cabling mighty freely--and I want
+Beale!"
+
+But Beale was unreachable. A visit to his apartment produced no results.
+The "foreign gentleman" who on the previous day had called on van
+Heerden had been seen there that morning, but he, too, had vanished, and
+none of McNorton's watchers had been able to pick him up.
+
+McNorton shifted the direction of his search and dropped into the
+palatial establishment of Punsonby's. He strolled past the grill-hidden
+desk which had once held Oliva Cresswell, and saw out of the tail of his
+eye a stranger in her place and by her side the darkly taciturn Hilda
+Glaum.
+
+Mr. White, that pompous man, greeted him strangely. As the police chief
+came into the private office Mr. White half-rose, turned deadly pale and
+became of a sudden bereft of speech. McNorton recognized the symptoms
+from long acquaintance with the characteristics of detected criminals,
+and wondered how deeply this pompous man was committed to whatever
+scheme was hatching.
+
+"Ah--ah--Mr. McNorton!" stammered White, shaking like a leaf, "won't you
+sit down, please? To what--to what," he swallowed twice before he could
+get the words out, "to what am I indebted?"
+
+"Just called in to look you up," said McNorton genially. "Have you been
+losing any more--registered letters lately?"
+
+Mr. White subsided again into his chair.
+
+"Yes, yes--no, I mean," he said, "no--ah--thank you. It was kind of you
+to call, inspector----"
+
+"Superintendent," corrected the other good-humouredly.
+
+"A thousand pardons, superintendent," said Mr. White hastily, "no, sir,
+nothing so unfortunate."
+
+He shot a look half-fearful, half-resentful at the police officer.
+
+"And how is your friend Doctor van Heerden?"
+
+Mr. White twisted uncomfortably in his chair. Again his look of
+nervousness and apprehension.
+
+"Mr.--ah--van Heerden is not a friend of mine," he said, "a business
+acquaintance," he sighed heavily, "just a business acquaintance."
+
+The White he had known was not the White of to-day. The man looked
+older, his face was more heavily lined and his eyes were dark with
+weariness.
+
+"I suppose he's a pretty shrewd fellow," he remarked carelessly. "You
+are interested in some of his concerns, aren't you?"
+
+"Only one, only one," replied White sharply, "and I wish to Heaven----"
+
+He stopped himself.
+
+"And you wish you weren't, eh?"
+
+Again the older man wriggled in his chair.
+
+"Doctor van Heerden is very clever," he said; "he has great schemes, in
+one of which I am--ah--financially interested. That is all--I have put
+money into his--ah--syndicate, without, of course, knowing the nature of
+the work which is being carried out. That I would impress upon you."
+
+"You are a trusting investor," said the good-humoured McNorton.
+
+"I am a child in matters of finance," admitted Mr. White, but added
+quickly, "except, of course, in so far as the finance of Punsonby's,
+which is one of the soundest business concerns in London, Mr. McNorton.
+We pay our dividends regularly and our balance sheets are a model for
+the industrial world."
+
+"So I have heard," said McNorton dryly. "I am interested in syndicates,
+too. By the way, what is Doctor van Heerden's scheme?"
+
+Mr. White shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea," he confessed with a melancholy smile. "I
+suppose it is very foolish of me, but I have such faith in the doctor's
+genius that when he came to me and said: 'My dear White, I want you to
+invest a few thousand in one of my concerns,' I said: 'My dear doctor,
+here is my cheque, don't bother me about the details but send in my
+dividends regularly.' Ha! ha!"
+
+His laugh was hollow, and would not have deceived a child of ten.
+
+"So you invested L40,000----" began McNorton.
+
+"Forty thousand!" gasped Mr. White, "how did you know?"
+
+He went a trifle paler.
+
+"These things get about," said McNorton, "as I was going to say, you
+invested L40,000 without troubling to discover what sort of work the
+syndicate was undertaking. I am not speaking now as a police officer,
+Mr. White," he went on, and White did not disguise his relief, "but as
+an old acquaintance of yours."
+
+"Say friend," said the fervent Mr. White. "I have always regarded you,
+Mr. McNorton, as a friend of mine. Let me see, how long have we known
+one another? I think the first time we met was when Punsonby's was
+burgled in '93."
+
+"It's a long time," said McNorton; "but don't let us get off the subject
+of your investment, which interests me as a friend. You gave Doctor van
+Heerden all this money without even troubling to discover whether his
+enterprise was a legal one. I am not suggesting it was illegal," he
+said, as White opened his mouth to protest, "but it seems strange that
+you did not trouble to inquire."
+
+"Oh, of course, I inquired, naturally I inquired, Mr. McNorton," said
+White eagerly, "it was for some chemical process and I know nothing
+about chemistry. I don't mind admitting to you," he lowered his voice,
+though there was no necessity, "that I regret my investment very much.
+We business men have many calls. We cannot allow our money to be tied up
+for too long a time, and it happens--ah--that just at this moment I
+should be very glad, very glad indeed, to liquidate that investment."
+
+McNorton nodded. He knew a great deal more about White's financial
+embarrassments than that gentleman gave him credit for. He knew, for
+example, that the immaculate managing director of Punsonby's was in the
+hands of moneylenders, and that those moneylenders were squeezing him.
+He suspected that all was not well with Punsonby's. There had been
+curious rumours in the City amongst the bill discounters that Punsonby's
+"paper" left much to be desired.
+
+"Do you know the nationality of van Heerden?" he asked.
+
+"Dutch," replied Mr. White promptly.
+
+"Are you sure of this?"
+
+"I would stake my life on it," answered the heroic Mr. White.
+
+"As I came through to your office I saw a young lady at the cashier's
+desk--Miss Glaum, I think her name is. Is she Dutch, too?"
+
+"Miss Glaum--ah--well Miss Glaum." White hesitated. "A very nice,
+industrious girl, and a friend of Doctor van Heerden's. As a matter of
+fact, I engaged her at his recommendation. You see, I was under an
+obligation to the doctor. He had--ah--attended me in my illness."
+
+That this was untrue McNorton knew. White was one of those financial
+shuttlecocks which shrewd moneylenders toss from one to the other. White
+had been introduced by van Heerden to capital in a moment of hectic
+despair and had responded when his financial horizon was clearer by
+pledging his credit for the furtherance of van Heerden's scheme.
+
+"Of course you know that as a shareholder in van Heerden's syndicate you
+cannot escape responsibility for the purposes to which your money is
+put," he said, as he rose to go. "I hope you get your money back."
+
+"Do you think there is any doubt?" demanded White, in consternation.
+
+"There is always a doubt about getting money back from syndicates," said
+McNorton cryptically.
+
+"Please don't go yet." Mr. White passed round the end of his desk and
+intercepted the detective with unexpected agility, taking, so to speak,
+the door out of his hands and closing it. "I am alarmed, Mr. McNorton,"
+he said, as he led the other back to his chair, "I won't disguise it. I
+am seriously alarmed by what you have said. It is not the thought of
+losing the money, oh dear, no. Punsonby's would not be ruined by--ah--a
+paltry L40,000. It is, if I may be allowed to say so, the sinister
+suggestion in your speech, inspector--superintendent I mean. Is it
+possible"--he stood squarely in front of McNorton, his hands on his
+hips, his eyeglass dangling from his fastidious fingers and his head
+pulled back as though he wished to avoid contact with the possibility,
+"is it possible that in my ignorance I have been assisting to finance a
+scheme which is--ah--illegal, immoral, improper and contrary--ah--to the
+best interests of the common weal?"
+
+He shook his head as though he were unable to believe his own words.
+
+"Everything is possible in finance," said McNorton with a smile. "I am
+not saying that Doctor van Heerden's syndicate is an iniquitous one, I
+have not even seen a copy of his articles of association. Doubtless you
+could oblige me in that respect."
+
+"I haven't got such a thing," denied Mr. White vigorously, "the
+syndicate was not registered. It was, so to speak, a private concern."
+
+"But the exploitation of Green Rust?" suggested the superintendent, and
+the man's face lost the last vestige of colour it possessed.
+
+"The Green Rust?" he faltered. "I have heard the phrase. I know
+nothing----"
+
+"You know nothing, but suspect the worst," said McNorton. "Now I am
+going to speak plainly to you. The reason you know nothing about this
+syndicate of van Heerden's is because you had a suspicion that it was
+being formed for an illegal purpose--please don't interrupt me--you know
+nothing because you did not want to know. I doubt even whether you
+deceived yourself. You saw a chance of making big money, Mr. White, and
+big money has always had an attraction for you. There isn't a fool's
+scheme that was ever hatched in a back alley bar that you haven't
+dropped money over. And you saw a chance here, more tangible than any
+that had been presented to you."
+
+"I swear to you----" began White.
+
+"The time has not come for you to swear anything," said McNorton
+sternly, "there is only one place where a man need take his oath, and
+that is on the witness-stand. I will tell you this frankly, that we are
+as much in the dark as you pretend to be. There is only one man who
+knows or guesses the secret of the Green Rust, and that man is Beale."
+
+"Beale!"
+
+"You have met the gentleman, I believe? I hope you don't have to meet
+him again. The Green Rust may mean little. It may mean no more than that
+you will lose your money, and I should imagine that is the least which
+will happen to you. On the other hand, Mr. White, I do not disguise from
+you the fact that it may also mean your death at the hands of the law."
+
+White made a gurgling noise in his throat and held on to the desk for
+support.
+
+"I have only the haziest information as to what it is all about, but
+somehow"--McNorton knit his brows in a frown and was speaking half to
+himself--"I seem to feel that it is a bad business--a damnably bad
+business."
+
+He took up his hat from the table and walked to the door.
+
+"I don't know whether to say au revoir or good-bye," he said with
+twitching lips.
+
+"Good-bye--ah--is a very good old-fashioned word," said Mr. White, in an
+heroic attempt to imitate the other's good humour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BRIDGERS BREAKS LOOSE
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden sat by the side of the big four-poster bed, where the
+girl lay, and his cold blue eyes held a spark of amusement.
+
+"You look very foolish," he said.
+
+Oliva Cresswell turned her head sharply so as to remove the man from her
+line of vision.
+
+More than this she could not do, for her hands and feet were strapped,
+and on the pillow, near her head, was a big bath-towel saturated with
+water which had been employed in stifling her healthy screams which
+marked her return to understanding.
+
+"You look very foolish," said the doctor, chewing at the end of his
+cigar, "and you look no more foolish than you have been. Bridgers let
+you out, eh? Nice man, Mr. Bridgers; what had he been telling you?"
+
+She turned her head again and favoured him with a stare. Then she looked
+at the angry red mark on her wrists where the straps chafed.
+
+"How Hun-like!" she said; but this time he smiled.
+
+"You will not make me lose my temper again, Little-wife-to-be," he
+mocked her; "you may call me Hun or Heinz or Fritz or any of the
+barbarous and vulgar names which the outside world employ to vilify my
+countrymen, but nothing you say will distress or annoy me. To-morrow you
+and I will be man and wife."
+
+"This is not Germany," she said scornfully. "You cannot make a woman
+marry you against her will, this is----"
+
+"The land of the free," he interrupted suavely. "Yes--I know those
+lands, on both sides of the Atlantic. But even there curious things
+happen. And you're going to marry me--you will say 'Yes' to the sleek
+English clergyman when he asks you whether you will take this man to be
+your married husband, to love and cherish and all that sort of thing,
+you'll say 'Yes.'"
+
+"I shall say 'No!'" she said steadily.
+
+"You will say 'Yes,'" he smiled. "I had hoped to be able to give
+sufficient time to you so that I might persuade you to act sensibly. I
+could have employed arguments which I think would have convinced you
+that there are worse things than marriage with me."
+
+"I cannot think of any," she replied coldly.
+
+"Then you are singularly dense," said the doctor. "I have already told
+you the conditions under which that marriage will take place. There
+might be no marriage, you know, and a different end to this adventure,"
+he said, significantly, and she shivered.
+
+He said nothing more for five minutes, simply sitting biting at the
+cigar between his teeth and looking at her blankly, as though his
+thoughts were far away and she was the least of the problems which
+confronted him.
+
+"I know it is absurd to ask you," he said suddenly, "but I presume you
+have not devoted any of your studies to the question of capital
+punishment. I see you haven't; but there is one interesting fact about
+the execution of criminals which is not generally known to the public,
+and it is that in many countries, my own for example, before a man is
+led to execution he is doped with a drug which I will call 'Bromocine.'
+Does that interest you?"
+
+She made no reply, and he laughed quietly.
+
+"It should interest you very much," he said. "The effect of Bromocine,"
+he went on, speaking with the quiet precision of one who was lecturing
+on the subject to an interested audience, "is peculiar. It reduces the
+subject to a condition of extreme lassitude, so that really nothing
+matters or seems to matter. Whilst perfectly conscious the subject goes
+obediently to his death, behaves normally and does just what he is
+told--in fact, it destroys the will."
+
+"Why do you tell me this?" she asked, a sudden fear gripping her heart.
+
+He half-turned in his chair, reached out his hand and took a little
+black case from the table near the window. This he laid on the bed and
+opened, and she watched him, fascinated. He took a tiny bottle
+containing a colourless liquid, and with great care laid it on the
+coverlet. Then he extracted a small hypodermic syringe and a
+needle-pointed nozzle. He uncorked the bottle, inserted the syringe and
+filled it, then he screwed on the needle, pressed the plunger until a
+fine jet leapt in the air, then he laid it carefully back in the case.
+
+"You say you will not marry me and I presume that you would make a scene
+when I bring in the good English parson to perform the ceremony. I had
+hoped," he said apologetically, "to have given you a wedding with all
+the pomp and circumstance which women, as I understand, love. Failing
+that, I hoped for a quiet wedding in the little church out yonder." He
+jerked his head toward the window. "But now I am afraid that I must ask
+his reverence to carry out the ceremony in this house."
+
+He rose, leant over her and deftly pulled back her sleeve.
+
+"If you scream I shall smother you with the towel," he said. "This won't
+hurt you very much. As I was going to say, you will be married here
+because you are in a delicate state of health and you will say 'Yes.'"
+
+She winced as the needle punctured the skin.
+
+"It won't hurt you for very long," he said calmly. "You will say 'Yes,'
+I repeat, because I shall tell you to say 'Yes.'"
+
+Suddenly the sharp pricking pain in her arm ceased. She was conscious
+of a sensation as though her arm was being blown up like a bicycle tyre,
+but it was not unpleasant. He withdrew the needle and kept his finger
+pressed upon the little red wound where it had gone in.
+
+"I shall do this to you again to-night," he said, "and you will not feel
+it at all, and to-morrow morning, and you will not care very much what
+happens. I hope it will not be necessary to give you a dose to-morrow
+afternoon."
+
+"I shall not always be under the influence of this drug," she said
+between her teeth, "and there will be a time of reckoning for you, Dr.
+van Heerden."
+
+"By which time," he said calmly, "I shall have committed a crime so
+wonderful and so enormous that the mere offence of 'administering a
+noxious drug'--that is the terminology which describes the offence--will
+be of no importance and hardly worth the consideration of the Crown
+officers. Now I think I can unfasten you." He loosened and removed the
+straps at her wrists and about her feet and put them in his pocket.
+
+"You had better get up and walk about," he said, "or you will be stiff.
+I am really being very kind to you if you only knew it. I am too big to
+be vindictive. And, by the way, I had an interesting talk with your
+friend, Mr. Beale, this afternoon, a persistent young man who has been
+having me shadowed all day." He laughed quietly. "If I hadn't to go back
+to the surgery for the Bromocine I should have missed our very
+interesting conversation. That young man is very much in love with
+you"--he looked amusedly at the growing red in her face. "He is very
+much in love with you," he repeated. "What a pity! What a thousand
+pities!"
+
+"How soon will this drug begin to act?" she asked.
+
+"Are you frightened?"
+
+"No, but I should welcome anything which made me oblivious to your
+presence--you are not exactly a pleasant companion," she said, with a
+return to the old tone he knew so well.
+
+"Content yourself, little person," he said with simulated affection.
+"You will soon be rid of me."
+
+"Why do you want to marry me?"
+
+"I can tell you that now," he said: "Because you are a very rich woman
+and I want your money, half of which comes to me on my marriage."
+
+"Then the man spoke the truth!" She sat up suddenly, but the effort made
+her head swim.
+
+He caught her by the shoulders and laid her gently down.
+
+"What man--not that babbling idiot, Bridgers?" He said something, but
+instantly recovered his self-possession. "Keep quiet," he said with
+professional sternness. "Yes, you are the heiress of an interesting
+gentleman named John Millinborn."
+
+"John Millinborn!" she gasped. "The man who was murdered!"
+
+"The man who was killed," he corrected. "'Murder' is a stupid, vulgar
+word. Yes, my dear, you are his heiress. He was your uncle, and he left
+you something over six million dollars. That is to say he left us that
+colossal sum."
+
+"But I don't understand. What does it mean?"
+
+"Your name is Predeaux. Your father was the ruffian----"
+
+"I know, I know," she cried. "The man in the hotel. The man who died. My
+father!"
+
+"Interesting, isn't it?" he said calmly, "like something out of a book.
+Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do
+well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother
+died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty
+and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that that was the truth."
+
+"My father!" she murmured.
+
+She lay, her face as white as the pillow, her eyes closed.
+
+"John Millinborn left a fortune for you--and I think that you might as
+well know the truth now--the money was left in trust. You were not to
+know that you were an heiress until you were married. He was afraid of
+some fortune-hunter ruining your young life as Predeaux ruined your
+mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now I don't intend ruining your
+life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the
+capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young
+woman."
+
+"I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it," she muttered.
+
+He rose from the chair and bent over her.
+
+"My young friend, you are going to sleep," he said to himself, waited a
+little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him.
+
+He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the
+girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who
+had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man.
+
+"Hello, Bridgers," said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been
+talking."
+
+"Well, who doesn't?" snarled the man.
+
+He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took
+a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously.
+
+"That stuff will kill you one of these days," said van Heerden.
+
+"It will make him better-tempered," growled the hairless man. "I don't
+mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between
+dopes that they get on my nerves."
+
+"Dr. Milsom speaks like a Christian and an artist," said Bridgers, with
+sudden cheerfulness. "If I didn't dope, van Heerden, I should not be
+working in your beastly factory, but would probably be one of the
+leading analytical chemists in America. But I'll go back to do my
+chore," he said rising. "I suppose I get a little commission for
+restoring your palpitating bride? Milsom tells me that it is she. I
+thought it was the other dame--the Dutch girl. I guess I was a bit
+dopey."
+
+Van Heerden frowned.
+
+"You take too keen an interest in my affairs," he said.
+
+"Aw! You're getting touchy. If I didn't get interested in something I'd
+go mad," chuckled Bridgers.
+
+He had reached that stage of cocaine intoxication when the world was a
+very pleasant place indeed and full of subject for jocularity.
+
+"This place is getting right on my nerves," he went on, "couldn't I go
+to London? I'm stagnating here. Why, some of the stuff I cultivated the
+other day wouldn't react. Isn't that so, Milsom? I get so dull in this
+hole that all bugs look alike to me."
+
+Van Heerden glanced at the man who was addressed as Dr. Milsom and the
+latter nodded.
+
+"Let him go back," he said, "I'll look after him. How's the lady?" asked
+Milsom when they were alone.
+
+The other made a gesture and Dr. Milsom nodded.
+
+"It's good stuff," he said. "I used to give it to lunatics in the days
+of long ago."
+
+Van Heerden did not ask him what those days were. He never pryed too
+closely into the early lives of his associates, but Milsom's history was
+public property. Four years before he had completed a "life sentence" of
+fifteen years for a crime which had startled the world in '99.
+
+"How are things generally?" he asked.
+
+Van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"For the first time I am getting nervous," he said. "It isn't so much
+the fear of Beale that rattles me, but the sordid question of money. The
+expenses are colossal and continuous."
+
+"Hasn't your--Government"--Milsom balked at the word--"haven't your
+friends abroad moved in the matter yet?"
+
+Van Heerden shook his head.
+
+"I am very hopeful there," he said. "I have been watching the papers
+very closely, especially the Agrarian papers, and, unless I am mistaken,
+there is a decided movement in the direction of support. But I can't
+depend on that. The marriage must go through to-morrow."
+
+"White is getting nervous, too," he went on. "He is pestering me about
+the money I owe him, or rather the syndicate owes him. He's on the verge
+of ruin."
+
+Milsom made a little grimace.
+
+"Then he'll squeal," he said, "those kind of people always do. You'll
+have to keep him quiet. You say the marriage is coming off to-morrow?"
+
+"I have notified the parson," said van Heerden. "I told him my fiancee
+is too ill to attend the church and the ceremony must be performed
+here."
+
+Milsom nodded. He had risen from the table and was looking out upon the
+pleasant garden at the rear of the house.
+
+"A man could do worse than put in three or four weeks here," he said.
+"Look at that spread of green."
+
+He pointed to an expanse of waving grasses, starred with the
+vari-coloured blossoms of wild flowers.
+
+"I was never a lover of nature," said van Heerden, carelessly.
+
+Milsom grunted.
+
+"You have never been in prison," he said cryptically. "Is it time to
+give your lady another dose?"
+
+"Not for two hours," said van Heerden. "I will play you at piquet."
+
+The cards were shuffled and the hands dealt when there was a scamper of
+feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a
+soiled white smock and his face was distorted with terror.
+
+"M'sieur, m'sieur," he cried, "that imbecile Bridgers!"
+
+"What's wrong?" Van Heerden sprang to his feet.
+
+"I think he is mad. He is dancing about the grounds, singing, and he has
+with him the preparation!"
+
+Van Heerden rapped out an oath and leapt through the door, the doctor at
+his heels. They took the short cut and ran up the steps leading from the
+well courtyard, and bursting through the bushes came within sight of the
+offender.
+
+But he was not dancing now. He was standing with open mouth, staring
+stupidly about him.
+
+"I dropped it, I dropped it!" he stammered.
+
+There was no need for van Heerden to ask what he had dropped, for the
+green lawn which had excited Milsom's admiration was no longer to be
+seen. In its place was a black irregular patch of earth which looked as
+though it had been blasted in the furnaces of hell, and the air was
+filled with the pungent mustiness of decay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+OLIVA IS WILLING
+
+
+It seemed that a grey curtain of mist hung before Oliva's eyes. It was a
+curtain spangled with tiny globes of dazzling light which grew from
+nothing and faded to nothing. Whenever she fixed her eyes upon one of
+these it straightway became two and three and then an unaccountable
+quantity.
+
+She felt that she ought to see faces of people she knew, for one half of
+her brain had cleared and was calmly diagnosing her condition, but doing
+so as though she were somebody else. She was emerging from a drugged
+sleep; she could regard herself in a curious impersonal fashion which
+was most interesting. And people who are drugged see things and people.
+Strange mirages of the mind arise and stranger illusions are suffered.
+Yet she saw nothing save this silvery grey curtain with its drifting
+spots of light and heard nothing except a voice saying, "Come along,
+come along, wake up." A hundred, a thousand times this monotonous order
+was repeated, and then the grey curtain faded and she was lying on the
+bed, her head throbbing, her eyes hot and prickly, and two men were
+looking down at her, one of them a big barefaced man with a coarse mouth
+and sunken eyes.
+
+"Was it my father really?" she asked drowsily.
+
+"I was afraid of that second dose you gave her last night," said Milsom.
+"You are getting a condition of coma and that's the last thing you
+want."
+
+"She'll be all right now," replied van Heerden, but his face was
+troubled. "The dose was severe--yet she seemed healthy enough to stand a
+three-minim injection."
+
+Milsom shook his head.
+
+"She'll be all right now, but she might as easily have died," he said.
+"I shouldn't repeat the dose."
+
+"There's no need," said van Heerden.
+
+"What time is it?" asked the girl, and sat up. She felt very weak and
+weary, but she experienced no giddiness.
+
+"It is twelve o'clock; you have been sleeping since seven last night.
+Let me see if you can stand. Get up."
+
+She obeyed meekly. She had no desire to do anything but what she was
+told. Her mental condition was one of complete dependence, and had she
+been left to herself she would have been content to lie down again.
+
+Yet she felt for a moment a most intense desire to propound some sort of
+plan which would give this man the money without going through a
+marriage ceremony. That desire lasted a minute and was succeeded by an
+added weariness as though this effort at independent thought had added a
+new burden to her strength. She knew and was mildly amazed at the
+knowledge that she was under the influence of a drug which was
+destroying her will, yet she felt no particular urge to make a fight for
+freedom of determination. "Freedom of determination." She repeated the
+words, having framed her thoughts with punctilious exactness, and
+remembered that that was a great war phrase which one was constantly
+discovering in the newspapers. All her thoughts were like this--they had
+the form of marshalled language, so that even her speculations were
+punctuated.
+
+"Walk over to the window," said the doctor, and she obeyed, though her
+knees gave way with every step she took. "Now come back--good, you're
+all right."
+
+She looked at him, and did not flinch when he laid his two hands on her
+shoulders.
+
+"You are going to be married this afternoon--that's all right, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "that is all right."
+
+"And you'll say 'yes' when I tell you to say 'yes,' won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I'll say that," she said.
+
+All the time she knew that this was monstrously absurd. All the time she
+knew that she did not wish to marry this man. Fine sentences, pompously
+framed, slowly formed in her mind such as: "This outrage will not go
+unpunished, comma, and you will suffer for this, comma, Dr. van Heerden,
+full stop."
+
+But the effort of creating the protest exhausted her so that she could
+not utter it. And she knew that the words were stilted and artificial,
+and the working-cells of her brain whispered that she was recalling and
+adapting something she had heard at the theatre. She wanted to do the
+easiest thing, and it seemed absurdly easy to say "yes."
+
+"You will stay here until the parson comes," said van Heerden, "and you
+will not attempt to escape, will you?"
+
+"No, I won't attempt to escape," she said.
+
+"Lie down."
+
+She sat on the bed and swung her feet clear of the ground, settling
+herself comfortably.
+
+"She'll do," said van Heerden, satisfied. "Come downstairs, Milsom, I
+have something to say to you."
+
+So they left her, lying with her cheek on her hand, more absorbed in the
+pattern on the wall-paper than in the tremendous events which
+threatened.
+
+"Well, what's the trouble?" asked Milsom, seating himself in his
+accustomed place by the table.
+
+"This," said van Heerden, and threw a letter across to him. "It came by
+one of my scouts this morning--I didn't go home last night. I cannot
+risk being shadowed here."
+
+Milsom opened the letter slowly and read:
+
+
+     "A man called upon you yesterday afternoon and has made several
+     calls since. He was seen by Beale, who cross-examined him. Man
+     calls himself Stardt, but is apparently not British. He is staying
+     at Saraband Hotel, Berners Street."
+
+
+"Who is this?" asked Milsom.
+
+"I dare not hope----" replied the doctor, pacing the room nervously.
+
+"Suppose you dared, what form would your hope take?"
+
+"I told you the other day," said van Heerden, stopping before his
+companion, "that I had asked my Government to assist me. Hitherto they
+have refused, that is why I am so desperately anxious to get this
+marriage through. I must have money. The Paddington place costs a small
+fortune--you go back there to-night, by the way----"
+
+Milsom nodded.
+
+"Has the Government relented?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. I told you that certain significant items in the East
+Prussian newspapers seemed to hint that they were coming to my
+assistance. They have sent no word to me, but if they should agree they
+would send their agreement by messenger."
+
+"And you think this may be the man?"
+
+"It is likely."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"I have sent Gregory up to see the man. If he is what I hope he may be,
+Gregory will bring him here--I have given him the password."
+
+"What difference will it make?" asked Milsom. "You are on to a big
+fortune, anyway."
+
+"Fortune?" The eyes of Dr. van Heerden sparkled and he seemed to expand
+at the splendour of the vision which was conjured to his eyes.
+
+"No fortune which mortal man has ever possessed will be comparable. All
+the riches of all the world will lie at my feet. Milliards upon
+milliards----"
+
+"In fact, a lot of money," said the practical Dr. Milsom. "'Umph! I
+don't quite see how you are going to do it. You haven't taken me very
+much into your confidence, van Heerden."
+
+"You know everything."
+
+Milsom chuckled.
+
+"I know that in the safe of my office you have a thousand sealed
+envelopes addressed, as I gather, to all the scallywags of the world,
+and I know pretty well what you intend doing; but how do you benefit?
+And how do I benefit?"
+
+Van Heerden had recovered his self-possession.
+
+"You have already benefited," he said shortly, "more than you could have
+hoped."
+
+There was an awkward pause; then Milsom asked:
+
+"What effect is it going to have upon this country?"
+
+"It will ruin England," said van Heerden fervently, and the old
+criminal's eyes narrowed.
+
+"'Umph!" he said again, and there was a note in his voice which made van
+Heerden look at him quickly.
+
+"This country hasn't done very much for you," he sneered.
+
+"And I haven't done much for this country--yet," countered the other.
+
+The doctor laughed.
+
+"You're turning into a patriot in your old age," he said.
+
+"Something like that," said Milsom easily. "There used to be a fellow at
+Portland--you have probably run across him--a clever crook named Homo,
+who used to be a parson before he got into trouble."
+
+"I never met the gentleman, and talking of parsons," he said, looking at
+his watch, "our own padre is late. But I interrupted you."
+
+"He was a man whose tongue I loathed, and he hated me poisonously," said
+Milsom, with a little grimace, "but he used to say that patriotism was
+the only form of religion which survived penal servitude. And I suppose
+that's the case. I hate the thought of putting this country in wrong."
+
+"You'll get over your scruples," said the other easily. "You are putting
+yourself in right, anyway. Think of the beautiful time you're going to
+have, my friend."
+
+"I think of nothing else," said Milsom, "but still----" He shook his
+head.
+
+Van Heerden had taken up the paper he had brought down and was reading
+it, and Milsom noted that he was perusing the produce columns.
+
+"When do we make a start?"
+
+"Next week," said the doctor. "I want to finish up the Paddington
+factory and get away."
+
+"Where will you go?"
+
+"I shall go to the Continent," replied van Heerden, folding up the paper
+and laying it on the table. "I can conduct operations from there with
+greater ease. Gregory goes to Canada. Mitchell and Samps have already
+organized Australia, and our three men in India will have ready
+workers."
+
+"What about the States?"
+
+"That has an organization of its own," Van Heerden said; "it is costing
+me a lot of money. All the men except you are at their stations waiting
+for the word 'Go.' You will take the Canadian supplies with you."
+
+"Do I take Bridgers?"
+
+Van Heerden shook his head.
+
+"I can't trust that fool. Otherwise he would be an ideal assistant for
+you. Your work is simple. Before you leave I will give you a sealed
+envelope containing a list of all our Canadian agents. You will also
+find two code sentences, one of which means 'Commence operations,' and
+the other, 'Cancel all instructions and destroy apparatus.'"
+
+"Will the latter be necessary?" asked Milsom.
+
+"It may be, though it is very unlikely. But I must provide against all
+contingencies. I have made the organization as simple as possible. I
+have a chief agent in every country, and on receipt of my message by the
+chief of the organization, it will be repeated to the agents, who also
+have a copy of the code."
+
+"It seems too easy," said Milsom. "What chance is there of detection?"
+
+"None whatever," said the doctor promptly. "Our only danger for the
+moment is this man Beale, but he knows nothing, and so long as we only
+have him guessing there is no great harm done--and, anyway, he hasn't
+much longer to guess."
+
+"It seems much too simple," said Milsom, shaking his head.
+
+Van Heerden had heard a footfall in the hall, stepped quickly to the
+door and opened it.
+
+"Well, Gregory?" he said.
+
+"He is here," replied the other, and waved his hand to a figure who
+stood behind him. "Also, the parson is coming down the road."
+
+"Good, let us have our friend in."
+
+The pink-faced foreigner with his stiff little moustache and his yellow
+boots stepped into the room, clicked his heels and bowed.
+
+"Have I the honour of addressing Doctor von Heerden?"
+
+"Van Heerden," corrected the doctor with a smile "that is my name."
+
+Both men spoke in German.
+
+"I have a letter for your excellency," said the messenger. "I have been
+seeking you for many days and I wish to report that unauthorized persons
+have attempted to take this from me."
+
+Van Heerden nodded, tore open the envelope and read the half a dozen
+lines.
+
+"The test-word is 'Breslau,'" he said in a low voice, and the messenger
+beamed.
+
+"I have the honour to convey to you the word." He whispered something in
+van Heerden's ear and Milsom, who did not understand German very well
+and had been trying to pick up a word or two, saw the look of exultation
+that came to the doctor's face.
+
+He leapt back and threw out his arms, and his strong voice rang with the
+words which the German hymnal has made famous:
+
+"Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt, Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt!"
+
+"What are you thanking God about?" asked Milsom.
+
+"It's come, it's come!" cried van Heerden, his eyes ablaze. "The
+Government is with me; behind me, my beautiful country. Oh, Gott sei
+Dank!"
+
+"The parson," warned Milsom.
+
+A young man stood looking through the open door.
+
+"The parson, yes," said van Heerden, "there's no need for it, but we'll
+have this wedding. Yes, we'll have it! Come in, sir."
+
+He was almost boyishly jovial. Milsom had never seen him like that
+before.
+
+"Come in, sir."
+
+"I am sorry to hear your fiancee is ill," said the curate.
+
+"Yes, yes, but that will not hinder the ceremony. I'll go myself and
+prepare her."
+
+Milsom had walked round the table to the window, and it was he who
+checked the doctor as he was leaving the room.
+
+"Doctor," he said, "come here."
+
+Van Heerden detected a strain of anxiety in the other's voice.
+
+"What is it?" he said.
+
+"Do you hear somebody speaking?"
+
+They stood by the window and listened intently.
+
+"Come with me," said the doctor, and he walked noiselessly and ascended
+the stairs, followed more slowly by his heavier companion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE MARRIAGE
+
+
+A quarter of a mile from Deans Folly a motor-car was halted on the side
+of a hill overlooking the valley in which van Heerden's house was set.
+
+"That's the house," said Beale, consulting the map, "and that wall that
+runs along the road is the wall the tramp described."
+
+"You seem to put a lot of faith in the statement of a man suffering from
+delirium tremens," said Parson Homo dryly.
+
+"He was not suffering from delirium tremens this morning. You didn't see
+him?"
+
+Homo shook his head.
+
+"I was in London fixing the preliminaries of your nuptials," he said
+sarcastically. "It may be the house," he admitted; "where is the
+entrance?"
+
+"There's a road midway between here and the river and a private road
+leading off," said Beale; "the gate, I presume, is hidden somewhere in
+those bushes."
+
+He raised a pair of field-glasses and focused them.
+
+"Yes, the gate's there," he said. "Do you see that man?"
+
+Homo took the glasses and looked.
+
+"Looks like a watcher," he said, "and if it is your friend's place the
+gate will be locked and barred. Why don't you get a warrant?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"He'd get wind of it and be gone. No, our way in is over the wall. The
+'hobo' said there's a garden door somewhere."
+
+They left the car and walked down the hill and presently came to a
+corner of the high wall which surrounded Deans Folly.
+
+Beale passed on ahead.
+
+"Here's the door," he said.
+
+He tried it gingerly and it gave a little.
+
+"It's clogged, and you won't get it open," said Homo; "it's the wall or
+nothing."
+
+Beale looked up and down the road. There was nobody in sight and he made
+a leap, caught the top of the wall and drew himself up. Luckily the
+usual _chevaux de frise_ was absent. Beneath him and a little to the
+right was a shed built against the wall, the door of which was closed.
+
+He signalled Homo to follow and dropped to the ground. In a minute both
+men were sheltering in the clump of bushes where on the previous day
+Oliva had waited before making a dart for the garden door.
+
+"There's been a fire here," said Homo in a low voice, and pointed to a
+big ugly patch of black amidst the green.
+
+Beale surveyed it carefully, then wormed his way through the bushes
+until he was within reach of the ruined plot. He stretched out his hand
+and pulled in a handful of the debris, examined it carefully and stuffed
+it into his pocket.
+
+"You are greatly interested in a grass fire," said Homo curiously.
+
+"Yes, aren't I?" replied Beale.
+
+They spent the next hour reconnoitring the ground. Once the door of the
+wall-shed opened, two men came out and walked to the house, and they had
+to lie motionless until after a seemingly interminable interval they
+returned again, stopping in the middle of the black patch to talk.
+Beale saw one pointing to the ruin and the other shook his head and they
+both returned to the shed and the door closed behind them.
+
+"There's somebody coming down the main drive," whispered Homo.
+
+They were now near the house and from where they lay had a clear view of
+fifty yards of the drive.
+
+"It's a brother brush!" said Homo, in a chuckling whisper.
+
+"A what?" asked Beale.
+
+"A parson."
+
+"A parson?"
+
+He focused his glasses. Some one in clerical attire accompanied by the
+man whom Beale recognized as the guard of the gate, was walking quickly
+down the drive. There was no time to be lost. But now for the first time
+doubts assailed him. His great scheme seemed more fantastic and its
+difficulties more real. What could be easier than to spring out and
+intercept the clergyman, but would that save the girl? What force did
+the house hold? He had to deal with men who would stop short at nothing
+to achieve their purpose and in particular one man who had not hesitated
+at murder.
+
+He felt his heart thumping, not at the thought of danger, though danger
+he knew was all round, but from sheer panic that he himself was about to
+play an unworthy part. Whatever fears or doubts he may have had suddenly
+fell away from him and he rose to his knees, for not twenty yards away
+at a window, her hands grasping the bars, her apathetic eyes looking
+listlessly toward where he crouched, was Oliva Cresswell.
+
+Regardless of danger, he broke cover and ran toward her.
+
+"Miss Cresswell," he called.
+
+She looked at him across the concrete well without astonishment and
+without interest.
+
+"It is you," she said, with extraordinary calm.
+
+He stood on the brink of the well hesitating. It was too far to leap and
+he remembered that behind the lilac bush he had seen a builder's plank.
+This he dragged out and passed it across the chasm, leaning the other
+end upon a ledge of brickwork which butted from the house.
+
+He stepped quickly across, gripped the bars and found a foothold on the
+ledge, the girl standing watching him without any sign of interest. He
+knew something was wrong. He could not even guess what that something
+was. This was not the girl he knew, but an Oliva Cresswell from whom all
+vitality and life had been sapped.
+
+"You know me?" he said. "I am Mr. Beale."
+
+"I know you are Mr. Beale," she replied evenly.
+
+"I have come to save you," he said rapidly. "Will you trust me? I want
+you to trust me," he said earnestly. "I want you to summon every atom of
+faith you have in human nature and invest it in me. Will you do this for
+me?"
+
+"I will do this for you," she said, like a child repeating a lesson.
+
+"I--I want you to marry me." He realized as he said these words in what
+his fear was founded. He knew now that it was her refusal even to go
+through the form of marriage which he dared not face.
+
+The truth leapt up to him and sent the blood pulsing through his head,
+that behind and beyond his professional care for her he loved her. He
+waited with bated breath, expecting her amazement, her indignation, her
+distress. But she was serene and untroubled, did not so much as raise
+her eyelids by the fraction of an inch as she answered:
+
+"I will marry you."
+
+He tried to speak but could only mutter a hoarse, "Thank you."
+
+He turned his head. Homo stood at the end of the plank and he beckoned
+him.
+
+Parson Homo came to the centre of the frail bridge, slipped a Prayer
+Book from his tail pocket and opened it.
+
+"Dearly beloved, we are come together here in the sight of God to join
+together this Man and this Woman in Holy Matrimony....
+
+"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the dreadful Day of
+Judgment when the secret of all hearts shall be disclosed that if either
+of you know any impediment why ye may not be joined together in
+Matrimony ye do now confess it."
+
+Beale's lips were tight pressed. The girl was looking serenely upward to
+a white cloud that sailed across the western skies.
+
+Homo read quickly, his enunciation beautifully clear, and Beale found
+himself wondering when last this man had performed so sacred an office.
+He asked the inevitable question and Beale answered. Homo hesitated,
+then turned to the girl.
+
+"Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband to live together after
+God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and
+serve him, love, honour and keep him in sickness and in health; and
+forsaking all others keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall
+live?"
+
+The girl did not immediately answer, and the pause was painful to the
+two men, but for different reasons. Then she suddenly withdrew her gaze
+from the sky and looked Homo straight in the face.
+
+"I will," she said.
+
+The next question in the service he dispensed with. He placed their
+hands together, and together repeating his words, they plighted their
+troth. Homo leant forward and again joined their hands and a note of
+unexpected solemnity vibrated in his voice when he spoke.
+
+"Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder."
+
+Beale drew a deep breath then:
+
+"Very pretty indeed," said a voice.
+
+The detective swung across the window to bring the speaker into a line
+of fire.
+
+"Put down your gun, admirable Mr. Beale." Van Heerden stood in the
+centre of the room and the bulky figure of Milsom filled the doorway.
+
+"Very pretty indeed, and most picturesque," said van Heerden. "I didn't
+like to interrupt the ceremony. Perhaps you will now come into the
+house, Mr. Beale, and I will explain a few things to you. You need not
+trouble about your--wife. She will not be harmed."
+
+Beale, revolver still in hand, made his way to the door and was
+admitted.
+
+"You had better come along, Homo," he said, "we may have to bluff this
+out."
+
+Van Heerden was waiting for him in the hall and invited him no farther.
+
+"You are perfectly at liberty to take away your wife," said van Heerden;
+"she will probably explain to you that I have treated her with every
+consideration. Here she is."
+
+Oliva was descending the stairs with slow, deliberate steps.
+
+"I might have been very angry with you," van Heerden went on, with that
+insolent drawl of his; "happily I do not find it any longer necessary to
+marry Miss Cresswell. I was just explaining to this gentleman"--he
+pointed to the pallid young curate in the background--"when your voices
+reached me. Nevertheless, I think it only right to tell you that your
+marriage is not a legal one, though I presume you are provided with a
+special licence."
+
+"Why is it illegal?" asked Beale.
+
+He wondered if Parson Homo had been recognized.
+
+"In the first place because it was not conducted in the presence of
+witnesses," said van Heerden.
+
+It was Homo who laughed.
+
+"I am afraid that would make it illegal but for the fact that you
+witnessed the ceremony by your own confession, and so presumably did
+your fat friend behind you."
+
+Mr. Milsom scowled.
+
+"You were always a bitter dog to me, Parson," he said, "but I can give
+you a reason why it's illegal," he said triumphantly. "That man is
+Parson Homo, a well-known crook who was kicked out of the Church fifteen
+years ago. I worked alongside him in Portland."
+
+Homo smiled crookedly.
+
+"You are right up to a certain point, Milsom," he said, "but you are
+wrong in one essential. By a curious oversight I was never unfrocked,
+and I am still legally a priest of the Church of England."
+
+"Heavens!" gasped Beale, "then this marriage is legal!"
+
+"It's as legal as it can possibly be," said Parson Homo complacently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BEALE SEES WHITE
+
+
+"In a sense," said Lawyer Kitson, "it is a tragedy. In a sense it is a
+comedy. The most fatal comedy of errors that could be imagined."
+
+Stanford Beale sat on a low chair, his head in his hands, the picture of
+dejection.
+
+"I don't mind your kicks," he said, without looking up; "you can't say
+anything worse about me than I am saying about myself. Oh, I've been a
+fool, an arrogant mad fool."
+
+Kitson, his hands clasped behind his back under his tail coat, his
+gold-rimmed pince-nez perched on his nose, looked down at the young man.
+
+"I am not going to tell you that I was against the idea from the
+beginning, because that is unnecessary. I ought to have put my foot down
+and stopped it. I heard you were pretty clever with a gun, Stanford. Why
+didn't you sail in and rescue the girl as soon as you found where she
+was?"
+
+"I don't think there would have been a ghost of a chance," said the
+other, looking up. "I am not finding excuses, but I am telling you what
+I know. There were four or five men in the house and they were all
+pretty tough citizens--I doubt if I would have made it that way."
+
+"You think he would have married her?"
+
+"He admitted as much," said Stanford Beale, "the parson was already
+there when I butted in."
+
+"What steps are you taking to deal with this man van Heerden?"
+
+Beale laughed helplessly.
+
+"I cannot take any until Miss Cresswell recovers."
+
+"Mrs. Beale," murmured Kitson, and the other went red.
+
+"I guess we'll call her Miss Cresswell, if you don't mind," he said
+sharply, "see here, Mr. Kitson, you needn't make things worse than they
+are. I can do nothing until she recovers and can give us a statement as
+to what happened. McNorton will execute the warrant just as soon as we
+can formulate a charge. In fact, he is waiting downstairs in the hope of
+seeing----" he paused, "Miss Cresswell. What does the doctor say?"
+
+"She's sleeping now."
+
+"It's maddening, maddening," groaned Beale, "and yet if it weren't so
+horrible I could laugh. Yesterday I was waiting for a 'hobo' to come out
+of delirium tremens. To-day I am waiting for Miss Cresswell to recover
+from some devilish drug. I've made a failure of it, Mr. Kitson."
+
+"I'm afraid you have," said the other dryly; "what do you intend doing?"
+
+"But does it occur to you," asked Kitson slowly, "that this lady is not
+aware that she has married you and that we've got to break the news to
+her? That's the part I don't like."
+
+"And you can bet it doesn't fill me with rollicking high spirits,"
+snapped Beale; "it's a most awful situation."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked the other again.
+
+"What are you going to do?" replied the exasperated Beale, "after all,
+you're her lawyer."
+
+"And you're her husband," said Kitson grimly, "which reminds me." He
+walked to his desk and took up a slip of paper. "I drew this out against
+your coming. This is a certified cheque for L400,000, that is nearly two
+million dollars, which I am authorized to hand to Oliva's husband on the
+day of her wedding."
+
+Beale took it from the other's fingers, read it carefully and tore it
+into little pieces, after which conversation flagged. After awhile Beale
+asked:
+
+"What do I have to do to get a divorce?"
+
+"Well," said the lawyer, "by the English law if you leave your wife and
+go away, and refuse to return to her she can apply to a judge of the
+High Court, who will order you to return within fourteen days."
+
+"I'd come back in fourteen seconds if she wanted me," said Beale
+fervently.
+
+"You're hopeless," said Kitson, "you asked how you could get a divorce.
+I presume you want one."
+
+"Of course I do. I want to undo the whole of this horrible tangle. It's
+absurd and undignified. Can nothing be done without Miss Cresswell
+knowing?"
+
+"Nothing can be done without your wife's knowledge," said Kitson.
+
+He seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in reminding the unhappy young man
+of his misfortune.
+
+"I am not blaming you," he said more soberly, "I blame myself. When I
+took this trust from poor John Millinborn I never realized all that it
+meant or all the responsibility it entailed. How could I imagine that
+the detective I employed to protect the girl from fortune hunters would
+marry her? I am not complaining," he said hastily, seeing the wrath rise
+in Beale's face, "it is very unfortunate, and you are as much the victim
+of circumstances as I. But unhappily we have not been the real victims."
+
+"I suppose," said Beale, looking up at the ceiling, "if I were one of
+those grand little mediaeval knights or one of those gallant gentlemen
+one reads about I should blow my brains out."
+
+"That would be a solution," said Mr. Kitson, "but we should still have
+to explain to your wife that she was a widow."
+
+"Then what am I to do?"
+
+"Have a cigar," said Kitson.
+
+He took two from his vest pocket and handed one to his companion, and
+his shrewd old eyes twinkled.
+
+"It's years and years since I read a romantic story," he said, "and I
+haven't followed the trend of modern literature very closely, but I
+think that your job is to sail in and make the lady love you."
+
+Beale jumped to his feet.
+
+"Do you mean that? Pshaw! It's absurd! It's ridiculous! She would never
+love me."
+
+"I don't see why anybody should, least of all your wife," said Kitson,
+"but it would certainly simplify matters."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Marry her all over again," said Kitson, sending a big ring of smoke
+into the air, "there's no law against it. You can marry as many times as
+you like, providing you marry the same woman."
+
+"But, suppose--suppose she loves somebody else?" asked Beale hoarsely.
+
+"Why then it will be tough on you," said Kitson, "but tougher on her.
+Your business is to see that she doesn't love somebody else."
+
+"But how?"
+
+A look of infinite weariness passed across Kitson's face. He removed his
+glasses and put them carefully into their case.
+
+"Really, as a detective," he said, "you may be a prize exhibit, but as
+an ordinary human being you wouldn't even get a consolation prize. You
+have got me into a mess and you have got to get me out. John Millinborn
+was concerned only with one thing--the happiness of his niece. If you
+can make your wife, Mrs. Stanford Beale" (Beale groaned), "if you can
+make your good lady happy," said the remorseless lawyer, "my trust is
+fulfilled. I believe you are a white man, Beale," he said with a change
+in his tone, "and that her money means nothing to you. I may not be able
+to give a young man advice as to the best method of courting his wife,
+but I know something about human nature, and if you are not straight, I
+have made one of my biggest mistakes. My advice to you is to leave her
+alone for a day or two until she's quite recovered. You have plenty to
+occupy your mind. Go out and fix van Heerden, but not for his treatment
+of the girl--she mustn't figure in a case of that kind, for all the
+facts will come out. You think you have another charge against him;
+well, prove it. That man killed John Millinborn and I believe you can
+put him behind bars. As the guardian angel of Oliva Cresswell you have
+shown certain lamentable deficiencies"--the smile in his eyes was
+infectious, and Stanford Beale smiled in sympathy. "In that capacity I
+have no further use for your services and you are fired, but you can
+consider yourself re-engaged on the spot to settle with van Heerden. I
+will pay all the expenses of the chase--but get him."
+
+He put out his hand and Stanford gripped it.
+
+"You're a great man, sir," he breathed.
+
+The old man chuckled.
+
+"And you may even be a great detective," he said. "In five minutes your
+Mr. Lassimus White will be here. You suggested I should send for
+him--who is he, by the way?"
+
+"The managing director of Punsonby's. A friend of van Heerden's and a
+shareholder in his Great Adventure."
+
+"But he knows nothing?"
+
+There was a tap at the door and a page-boy came into the sitting-room
+with a card.
+
+"Show the gentleman up," said Kitson; "it is our friend," he explained.
+
+"And he may know a great deal," said Beale.
+
+Mr. White stalked into the room dangling his glasses with the one hand
+and holding his shiny silk hat with the other. He invariably carried his
+hat as though it were a rifle he were shouldering.
+
+He bowed ceremoniously and closed the door behind him.
+
+"Mr.--ah--Kitson?" he said, and advanced a big hand. "I received your
+note and am, as you will observe, punctual. I may say that my favourite
+motto is 'Punctuality is the politeness of princes."
+
+"You know Mr. Beale?"
+
+Mr. White bowed stiffly.
+
+"I have--ah--met Mr. Beale."
+
+"In my unregenerate days," said Beale cheerfully, "but I am quite sober
+now."
+
+"I am delighted to learn this," said Mr. White. "I am extremely glad to
+learn this."
+
+"Mr. Kitson asked you to come, Mr. White, but really it is I who want to
+see you," said Beale. "To be perfectly frank, I learnt that you were in
+some slight difficulty."
+
+"Difficulty?" Mr. White bristled. "Me, sir, in difficulty? The head of
+the firm of Punsonby's, whose credit stands, sir, as a model of sound
+industrial finance? Oh no, sir."
+
+Beale was taken aback. He had depended upon information which came from
+unimpeachable sources to secure the co-operation of this pompous
+windbag.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said. "I understood that you had called a meeting of
+creditors and had offered to sell certain shares in a syndicate which I
+had hoped to take off your hands."
+
+Mr. White inclined his head graciously.
+
+"It is true, sir," he said, "that I asked a few--ah--wholesale firms to
+meet me and to talk over things. It is also true that I--ah--had shares
+which had ceased to interest me, but those shares are sold."
+
+"Sold! Has van Heerden bought them in?" asked Beale eagerly; and Mr.
+White nodded.
+
+"Doctor van Heerden, a remarkable man, a truly remarkable man." He shook
+his head as if he could not bring himself and never would bring himself
+to understand how remarkable a man the doctor was. "Doctor van Heerden
+has repurchased my shares and they have made me a very handsome profit."
+
+"When was this?" asked Beale.
+
+"I really cannot allow myself to be cross-examined, young man," he said
+severely, "by your accent I perceive that you are of trans-Atlantic
+origin, but I cannot allow you to hustle me--hustle I believe is the
+word. The firm of Punsonby's----"
+
+"Forget 'em," said Beale tersely. "Punsonby's has been on the verge of
+collapse for eight years. Let's get square, Mr. White. Punsonby's is a
+one man company and you're that man. Its balance sheets are faked, its
+reserves are non-existent. Its sinking fund is _spurlos versenkt_."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"I tell you I know Punsonby's--I've had the best accountants in London
+working out your position, and I know you live from hand to mouth and
+that the margin between your business and bankruptcy is as near as the
+margin between you and prison."
+
+Mr. White was very pale.
+
+"But that isn't my business and I dare say that the money van Heerden
+paid you this morning will stave off your creditors. Anyway, I'm not
+running a Pure Business Campaign. I'm running a campaign against your
+German friend van Heerden."
+
+"A German?" said the virtuous Mr. White in loud astonishment. "Surely
+not--a Holland gentleman----"
+
+"He's a German and you know it. You've been financing him in a scheme to
+ruin the greater part of Europe and the United States, to say nothing of
+Canada, South America, India and Australia."
+
+"I protest against such an inhuman charge," said Mr. White solemnly, and
+he rose. "I cannot stay here any longer----"
+
+"If you go I'll lay information against you," said Beale. "I'm in dead
+earnest, so you can go or stay. First of all, I want to know in what
+form you received the money?"
+
+"By cheque," replied White in a flurry.
+
+"On what bank?"
+
+"The London branch of the Swedland National Bank."
+
+"A secret branch of the Dresdner Bank," said Beale. "That's promising.
+Has Doctor Van Heerden ever paid you money before?"
+
+By now Mr. White was the most tractable of witnesses. All his old
+assurance had vanished, and his answers were almost apologetic in tone.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Beale, small sums."
+
+"On what bank?"
+
+"On my own bank."
+
+"Good again. Have you ever known that he had an account elsewhere--for
+example, you advanced him a very considerable sum of money; was your
+cheque cleared through the Swedland National Bank?"
+
+"No, sir--through my own bank."
+
+Beale fingered his chin.
+
+"Money this morning and he took his loss in good part--that can only
+mean one thing." He nodded. "Mr. White, you have supplied me with
+valuable information."
+
+"I trust I have said nothing which may--ah--incriminate one who has
+invariably treated me with the highest respect," Mr. White hastened to
+say.
+
+"Not more than he is incriminated," smiled Stanford. "One more question.
+You know that van Heerden is engaged in some sort of business--the
+business in which you invested your money. Where are his factories?"
+
+But here Mr. White protested he could offer no information. He recalled,
+not without a sinking of heart, a similar cross-examination on the
+previous day at the hands of McNorton. There were factories--van Heerden
+had hinted as much--but as to where they were located--well, confessed
+Mr. White, he hadn't the slightest idea.
+
+"That's rubbish," said Beale roughly, "you know. Where did you
+communicate with van Heerden? He wasn't always at his flat and you only
+came there twice."
+
+"I assure you----" began Mr. White, alarmed by the other's vehemence.
+
+"Assure nothing," thundered Beale, "your policies won't sell--where did
+you see him?"
+
+"On my honour----"
+
+"Let's keep jokes outside of the argument," said Beale truculently,
+"where did you see him?"
+
+"Believe me, I never saw him--if I had a message to send, my
+cashier--ah--Miss Glaum, an admirable young lady--carried it for me."
+
+"Hilda Glaum!"
+
+Beale struck his palm. Why had he not thought of Hilda Glaum before?
+
+"That's about all I want to ask you, Mr. White," he said mildly; "you're
+a lucky man."
+
+"Lucky, sir!" Mr. White recovered his hauteur as quickly as Beale's
+aggressiveness passed. "I fail to perceive my fortune. I fail to see,
+sir, where luck comes in."
+
+"You have your money back," said Beale significantly, "if you hadn't
+been pressed for money and had not pressed van Heerden you would have
+whistled for it."
+
+"Do you suggest," demanded White, in his best judicial manner, "do you
+suggest in the presence of a witness with a due appreciation of the
+actionable character of your words that Doctor van Heerden is a common
+swindler?"
+
+"Not common," replied Beale, "thank goodness!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+HILDA GLAUM LEADS THE WAY
+
+
+Beale had a long consultation with McNorton at Scotland Yard, and on his
+return to the hotel, had his dinner sent up to Kitson's private room and
+dined amidst a litter of open newspapers. They were representative
+journals of the past week, and he scanned their columns carefully. Now
+and again he would cut out a paragraph and in one case half a column.
+
+Kitson, who was dining with a friend in the restaurant of the hotel,
+came up toward nine o'clock and stood looking with amusement at the
+detective's silent labours.
+
+"You're making a deplorable litter in my room," he said, "but I suppose
+there is something very mysterious and terrible behind it all. Do you
+mind my reading your cuttings?"
+
+"Go ahead," said Beale, without raising his eyes from his newspaper.
+
+Kitson took up a slip and read aloud:
+
+
+     "The reserves of the Land Bank of the Ukraine have been increased
+     by ten million roubles. This increase has very considerably eased
+     the situation in Southern Ukraine and in Galicia, where there has
+     been considerable unrest amongst the peasants due to the high cost
+     of textiles."
+
+
+"That is fascinating news," said Kitson sardonically. "Are you running a
+scrap-book on high finance?"
+
+"No," said the other shortly, "the Land Bank is a Loan Bank. It finances
+peasant proprietors."
+
+"You a shareholder?" asked Mr. Kitson wonderingly.
+
+"No."
+
+Kitson picked up another cutting. It was a telegraphic dispatch dated
+from Berlin:
+
+
+     "As evidence of the healthy industrial tone which prevails in
+     Germany and the rapidity with which the Government is recovering
+     from the effects of the war, I may instance the fact that an order
+     has been placed with the Leipzieger Spoorwagen Gesselshaft for
+     60,000 box cars. The order has been placed by the L.S.G. with
+     thirty firms, and the first delivery is due in six weeks."
+
+
+"That's exciting," said Kitson, "but why cut it out?"
+
+The next cutting was also dated "Berlin" and announced the revival of
+the "War Purchase Council" of the old belligerent days as "a temporary
+measure."
+
+
+     "It is not intended," said the dispatch, "to invest the committee
+     with all its old functions, and the step has been taken in view of
+     the bad potato crop to organize distribution."
+
+
+"What's the joke about that?" asked Kitson, now puzzled.
+
+"The joke is that there is no potato shortage--there never was such a
+good harvest," said Beale. "I keep tag of these things and I know. The
+_Western Mail_ had an article from its Berlin correspondent last week
+saying that potatoes were so plentiful that they were a drug on the
+market."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+"Did you read about the Zeppelin sheds?" asked Beale. "You will find it
+amongst the others. All the old Zepp. hangars throughout Germany are to
+be put in a state of repair and turned into skating-rinks for the
+physical development of young Germany. Wonderful concrete floors are to
+be laid down, all the dilapidations are to be made good, and the bands
+will play daily, wet or fine."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked the bewildered lawyer.
+
+"That The Day--the real Day is near at hand," said Beale soberly.
+
+"War?"
+
+"Against the world, but without the flash of a bayonet or the boom of a
+cannon. A war fought by men sitting in their little offices and pulling
+the strings that will choke you and me, Mr. Kitson. To-night I am going
+after van Heerden. I may catch him and yet fail to arrest his evil
+work--that's a funny word, 'evil,' for everyday people to use, but
+there's no other like it. To-morrow, whether I catch him or not, I will
+tell you the story of the plot I accidentally discovered. The British
+Government thinks that I have got on the track of a big thing--so does
+Washington, and I'm having all the help I want."
+
+"It's a queer world," said Kitson.
+
+"It may be queerer," responded Beale, then boldly: "How is my wife?"
+
+"Your--well, I like your nerve!" gasped Kitson.
+
+"I thought you preferred it that way--how is Miss Cresswell?"
+
+"The nurse says she is doing famously. She is sleeping now; but she woke
+up for food and is nearly normal. She did not ask for you," he added
+pointedly.
+
+Beale flushed and laughed.
+
+"My last attempt to be merry," he said. "I suppose that to-morrow she
+will be well."
+
+"But not receiving visitors," Kitson was careful to warn him. "You will
+keep your mind off Oliva and keep your eye fixed on van Heerden if you
+are wise. No man can serve two masters."
+
+Stanford Beale looked at his watch.
+
+"It is the hour," he said oracularly, and got up.
+
+"I'll leave this untidiness for your man to clear," said Kitson. "Where
+do you go now?"
+
+"To see Hilda Glaum--if the fates are kind," said Beale. "I'm going to
+put up a bluff, believing that in her panic she will lead me into the
+lion's den with the idea of van Heerden making one mouthful of me. I've
+got to take that risk. If she is what I think she is, she'll lay a trap
+for me--I'll fall for it, but I'm going to get next to van Heerden
+to-night."
+
+Kitson accompanied him to the door of the hotel.
+
+"Take no unnecessary risks," he said at parting, "don't forget that
+you're a married man."
+
+"That's one of the things I want to forget if you'll let me," said the
+exasperated young man.
+
+Outside the hotel he hailed a passing taxi and was soon speeding through
+Piccadilly westward. He turned by Hyde Park Corner, skirted the grounds
+of Buckingham Palace and plunged into the maze of Pimlico. He pulled up
+before a dreary-looking house in a blank and dreary street, and telling
+the cabman to wait, mounted the steps and rang the bell.
+
+A diminutive maid opened the door.
+
+"Is Miss Glaum in?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, sir. Will you step into the drawing-room. All the other boarders
+are out. What name shall I say?"
+
+"Tell her a gentleman from Krooman Mansions," he answered
+diplomatically.
+
+He walked into the tawdry parlour and put down his hat and stick, and
+waited. Presently the door opened and the girl came in. She stopped
+open-mouthed with surprise at the sight of him, and her surprise
+deepened to suspicion.
+
+"I thought----" she began, and checked herself.
+
+"You thought I was Doctor van Heerden? Well, I am not."
+
+"You're the man I saw at Heyler's," she said, glowering at him.
+
+"Yes, my name is Beale."
+
+"Oh, I've heard about you. You'll get nothing by prying here," she
+cried.
+
+"I shall get a great deal by prying here, I think," he said calmly. "Sit
+down, Miss Hilda Glaum, and let us understand one another. You are a
+friend of Doctor van Heerden's?"
+
+"I shall answer no questions," she snapped.
+
+"Perhaps you will answer this question," he said, "why did Doctor van
+Heerden secure an appointment for you at Punsonby's, and why, when you
+were there, did you steal three registered envelopes which you conveyed
+to the doctor?"
+
+Her face went red and white.
+
+"That's a lie!" she gasped.
+
+"You might tell a judge and jury that and then they wouldn't believe
+you," he smiled. "Come, Miss Glaum, let us be absolutely frank with one
+another. I am telling you that I don't intend bringing your action to
+the notice of the police, and you can give me a little information which
+will be very useful to me."
+
+"It's a lie," she repeated, visibly agitated, "I did not steal anything.
+If Miss Cresswell says so----"
+
+"Miss Cresswell is quite ignorant of your treachery," said the other
+quietly; "but as you are determined to deny that much, perhaps you will
+tell me this, what business brings you to Doctor van Heerden's flat in
+the small hours of the morning?"
+
+"Do you insinuate----?"
+
+"I insinuate nothing. And least of all do I insinuate that you have any
+love affair with the doctor, who does not strike me as that kind of
+person."
+
+Her eyes narrowed and for a moment it seemed that her natural vanity
+would overcome her discretion.
+
+"Who says I go to Doctor van Heerden's?"
+
+"I say so, because I have seen you. Surely you don't forget that I live
+opposite the amiable doctor?"
+
+"I am not going to discuss my business or his," she said, "and I don't
+care what you threaten me with or what you do."
+
+"I will do something more than threaten you," he said ominously, "you
+will not fool me, Miss Glaum, and the sooner you realize the fact the
+better. I am going all the way with you if you give me any trouble, and
+if you don't answer my questions. I might tell you that unless this
+interview is a very satisfactory one to me I shall not only arrest
+Doctor van Heerden to-night but I shall take you as an accomplice."
+
+"You can't, you can't." She almost screamed the words.
+
+All the sullen restraint fell away from her and she was electric in the
+violence of her protest.
+
+"Arrest him! That wonderful man! Arrest me? You dare not! You dare not!"
+
+"I shall dare do lots of things unless you tell me what I want to know."
+
+"What do you want to know?" she demanded defiantly.
+
+"I want to know the most likely address at which your friend the doctor
+can be found--the fact is, Miss Glaum, the game is up--we know all about
+the Green Rust."
+
+She stepped back, her hand raised to her mouth.
+
+"The--the Green Rust!" she gasped. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I have every reason to believe that Doctor van Heerden is
+engaged in a conspiracy against this State. He has disappeared, but is
+still in London. I want to take him quietly--without fuss."
+
+Her eyes were fixed on his. He saw doubt, rage, a hint of fear and
+finally a steady light of resolution shining. When she spoke her voice
+was calm.
+
+"Very good. I will take you to the place," she said.
+
+She went out of the room and came back five minutes later with her hat
+and coat on.
+
+"It's a long way," she began.
+
+"I have a taxi at the door."
+
+"We cannot go all the way by taxi. Tell the man to drive to Baker
+Street," she said.
+
+She spoke no word during the journey, nor was Beale inclined for
+conversation. At Baker Street Station they stopped and the cab was
+dismissed. Together they walked in silence, turning from the main road,
+passing the Central Station and plunging into a labyrinth of streets
+which was foreign territory to the American.
+
+It seemed that he had passed in one step from one of the best-class
+quarters of the town to one of the worst. One minute he was passing
+through a sedate square, lined with the houses of the well-to-do,
+another minute he was in a slum.
+
+"The place is at the end of this street," she said.
+
+They came to what seemed to be a stable-yard. There was a blank wall
+with one door and a pair of gates. The girl took a key from her bag,
+opened the small door and stepped in, and Beale followed.
+
+They were in a yard littered with casks. On two sides of the yard ran
+low-roofed buildings which had apparently been used as stables. She
+locked the door behind her, walked across the yard to the corner and
+opened another door.
+
+"There are fourteen steps down," she said, "have you a light of any
+kind?"
+
+He took his electric torch from his pocket.
+
+"Give it to me," she said, "I will lead the way."
+
+"What is this place?" he asked, after she had locked the door.
+
+"It used to be a wine merchant's," she said shortly, "we have the
+cellars."
+
+"We?" he repeated.
+
+She made no reply. At the bottom of the steps was a short passage and
+another door which was opened, and apparently the same key fitted them
+all, or else as Beale suspected she carried a pass key.
+
+They walked through, and again she closed the door behind them.
+
+"Another?" he said, as her light flashed upon a steel door a dozen paces
+ahead.
+
+"It is the last one," she said, and went on.
+
+Suddenly the light was extinguished.
+
+"Your lamp's gone wrong," he heard her say, "but I can find the lock."
+
+He heard a click, but did not see the door open and did not realize
+what had happened until he heard a click again. The light was suddenly
+flashed on him, level with his eyes.
+
+"You can't see me," said a mocking voice, "I'm looking at you through
+the little spy-hole. Did you see the spy-hole, clever Mr. Beale? And I
+am on the other side of the door." He heard her laugh. "Are you going to
+arrest the doctor to-night?" she mocked. "Are you going to discover the
+secret of the Green Rust--ah! That is what you want, isn't it?"
+
+"My dear little friend," said Beale smoothly, "you will be very sensible
+and open that door. You don't suppose that I came here alone. I was
+shadowed all the way."
+
+"You lie," she said coolly, "why did I dismiss the cab and make you
+walk? Oh, clever Mr. Beale!"
+
+He chuckled, though he was in no chuckling mood.
+
+"What a sense of humour!" he said admiringly, "now just listen to me!"
+
+He made one stride to the door, his revolver had flicked out of his
+hip-pocket, when he heard the snap of a shutter, and the barrel that he
+thrust between the bars met steel. Then came the grind of bolts and he
+pocketed his gun.
+
+"So that's that," he said.
+
+Then he walked back to the other door, struck a match and examined it.
+It was sheathed with iron. He tapped the walls with his stick, but found
+nothing to encourage him. The floor was solidly flagged, the low roof of
+the passage was vaulted and cased with stone.
+
+He stopped in his search suddenly and listened. Above his head he heard
+a light patter of feet, and smiled. It was his boast that he never
+forgot a voice or a footfall.
+
+"That's my little friend on her way back, running like the deuce, to
+tell the doctor," he said. "I have something under an hour before the
+shooting starts!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden did not hurry his departure from his Staines house. He
+spent the morning following Oliva's marriage in town, transacting
+certain important business and making no attempt to conceal his comings
+and goings, though he knew that he was shadowed. Yet he was well aware
+that every hour that passed brought danger nearer. He judged (and
+rightly) that his peril was not to be found in the consequences to his
+detention of Oliva Cress well.
+
+"I may have a week's grace," he said to Milsom, "and in the space of a
+week I can do all that I want."
+
+He spent the evening superintending the dismantling of apparatus in the
+shed, and it was past ten o'clock on Tuesday before he finished.
+
+It was not until he was seated by Milsom's side in the big limousine and
+the car was running smoothly through Kingston that he made any further
+reference to the previous afternoon.
+
+"Is Beale content?" he asked.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Milsom, dozing in the corner of the car, awoke with a start.
+
+"Is Beale content with his prize--and his predicament?" asked van
+Heerden.
+
+"Well, I guess he should be. That little job brings him a million. He
+shouldn't worry about anything further."
+
+But van Heerden shook his head.
+
+"I don't think you have things quite right, Milsom," he said. "Beale is
+a better man than I thought, and knows my mind a little too well. He was
+astounded when Homo claimed to be a priest--I never saw a man more
+stunned in my life. He intended the marriage as a bluff to keep me away
+from the girl. He analysed the situation exactly, for he knew I was
+after her money, and that she as a woman had no attraction for me. He
+believed--and there he was justified--that if I could not marry her I
+had no interest in detaining her, and engaged Homo to follow him around
+with a special licence. He timed everything too well for my comfort."
+
+Milsom shifted round and peered anxiously at his companion.
+
+"How do you mean?" he asked. "It was only by a fluke that he made it in
+time."
+
+"That isn't what I mean. It is the fact that he knew that every second
+was vital, that he guessed I was keen on a quick marriage and that to
+forestall me he carried his (as he thought) pseudo-clergyman with him so
+that he need not lose a minute: these are the disturbing factors."
+
+"I don't see it," said Milsom, "the fellow's a crook, all these Yankee
+detectives are grafters. He saw a chance of a big rake off and took it,
+fifty-fifty of a million fortune is fine commission!"
+
+"You're wrong. I'd like to think as you do. Man! Can't you see that his
+every action proves that he knows all about the Green Rust?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Milsom sat up.
+
+"How--what makes you say that?"
+
+"It's clear enough. He has already some idea of the scheme. He has been
+pumping old Heyler; he even secured a sample of the stuff--it was a
+faulty cultivation, but it might have been enough for him. He surmised
+that I had a special use for old Millinborn's money and why I was in a
+hurry to get it."
+
+The silence which followed lasted several minutes.
+
+"Does anybody except Beale know? If you settled him...?"
+
+"We should have to finish him to-night" said van Heerden, "that is what
+I have been thinking about all day."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"Well, why not?" asked Milsom, "it is all one to me. The stake is worth
+a little extra risk."
+
+"It must be done before he finds the Paddington place; that is the
+danger which haunts me." Van Heerden was uneasy, and he had lost the
+note of calm assurance which ordinarily characterized his speech. "There
+is sufficient evidence there to spoil everything."
+
+"There is that," breathed Milsom, "it was madness to go on. You have all
+the stuff you want, you could have closed down the factory a week ago."
+
+"I must have a margin of safety--besides, how could I do anything else?
+I was nearly broke and any sign of closing down would have brought my
+hungry workers to Krooman Mansions."
+
+"That's true," agreed the other, "I've had to stall 'em off, but I
+didn't know that it was because you were broke. It seemed to me just a
+natural reluctance to part with good money."
+
+Further conversation was arrested by the sudden stoppage of the car. Van
+Heerden peered through the window ahead and caught a glimpse of a red
+lamp.
+
+"It is all right," he said, "this must be Putney Common, and I told
+Gregory to meet me with any news."
+
+A man came into the rays of the head-lamp and passed to the door.
+
+"Well," asked the doctor, "is there any trouble?"
+
+"I saw the green lamp on the bonnet," said Gregory (Milsom no longer
+wondered how the man had recognized the car from the score of others
+which pass over the common), "there is no news of importance."
+
+"Where is Beale?"
+
+"At the old man's hotel. He has been there all day."
+
+"Has he made any further visits to the police?"
+
+"He was at Scotland Yard this afternoon."
+
+"And the young lady?"
+
+"One of the waiters at the hotel, a friend of mine, told me that she is
+much better. She has had two doctors."
+
+"And still lives?" said the cynical Milsom. "That makes four doctors she
+has seen in two days."
+
+Van Heerden leant out of the car window and lowered his voice.
+
+"The Fraeulein Glaum, you saw her?"
+
+"Yes, I told her that she must not come to your laboratory again until
+you sent for her. She asked when you leave."
+
+"That she must not know, Gregory--please remember."
+
+He withdrew his head, tapped at the window and the car moved on.
+
+"There's another problem for you, van Heerden," said Milsom with a
+chuckle.
+
+"What?" demanded the other sharply.
+
+"Hilda Glaum. I've only seen the girl twice or so, but she adores you.
+What are you going to do with her?"
+
+Van Heerden lit a cigarette, and in the play of the flame Milsom saw him
+smiling.
+
+"She comes on after me," he said, "by which I mean that I have a place
+for her in my country, but not----"
+
+"Not the sort of place she expects," finished Milsom bluntly. "You may
+have trouble there."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"That's foolish," said Milsom, "the convict establishments of England
+are filled with men who said 'Bah' when they were warned against jealous
+women. If," he went on, "if you could eliminate jealousy from the human
+outfit, you'd have half the prison warders of England unemployed."
+
+"Hilda is a good girl," said the other complacently, "she is also a good
+German girl, and in Germany women know their place in the system. She
+will be satisfied with what I give her."
+
+"There aren't any women like that," said Milsom with decision, and the
+subject dropped.
+
+The car stopped near the Marble Arch to put down Milsom, and van Heerden
+continued his journey alone, reaching his apartments a little before
+midnight. As he stepped out of the car a man strolled across the street.
+It was Beale's watcher. Van Heerden looked round with a smile, realizing
+the significance of this nonchalant figure, and passed through the lobby
+and up the stairs.
+
+He had left his lights full on for the benefit of watchers, and the
+hall-lamp glowed convincingly through the fanlight. Beale's flat was in
+darkness, and a slip of paper fastened to the door gave his address.
+
+The doctor let himself into his own rooms, closed the door, switched
+out the light and stepped into his bureau.
+
+"Hello," he said angrily, "what are you doing here?--I told you not to
+come."
+
+The girl who was sitting at the table and who now rose to meet him was
+breathless, and he read trouble in her face. He could have read pride
+there, too, that she had so well served the man whom she idolized as a
+god.
+
+"I've got him, I've got him, Julius!"
+
+"Got him! Got whom?" he asked, with a frown.
+
+"Beale!" she said eagerly, "the great Beale!"
+
+She gurgled with hysterical laughter.
+
+"He came to me, he was going to arrest me to-night, but I got him."
+
+"Sit down," he said firmly, "and try to be coherent, Hilda. Who came to
+you?"
+
+"Beale. He came to my boarding-house and wanted to know where you had
+taken Oliva Cresswell. Have you taken her?" she asked earnestly.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+"He came to me full of arrogance and threats. He was going to have me
+arrested, Julius, because of those letters which I gave you. But I
+didn't worry about myself, Julius. It was all for you that I thought.
+The thought that you, my dear, great man, should be put in one of these
+horrible English prisons--oh, Julius!"
+
+She rose, her eyes filled with tears, but he stood over her, laid his
+hands on her shoulders and pressed her back.
+
+"Now, now. You must tell me everything. This is very serious. What
+happened then?"
+
+"He wanted me to take him to one of the places."
+
+"One of what places?" he asked quickly.
+
+"I don't know. He only said that he knew that you had other houses--I
+don't even know that he said that, but that was the impression that he
+gave me, that he knew you were to be found somewhere."
+
+"Go on," said the doctor.
+
+"And so I thought and I thought," said the girl, her hands clasped in
+front of her, her eyes looking up into his, "and I prayed God would
+give me some idea to help you. And then the scheme came to me, Julius. I
+said I would lead him to you."
+
+"You said you would lead him to me?" he said steadily, "and where did
+you lead him?"
+
+"To the factory in Paddington," she said.
+
+"There!" he stared at her.
+
+"Wait, wait, wait!" she said, "oh, please don't blame me! I took him
+into the passage with the doors. I borrowed his light, and after we had
+passed and locked the second door I slipped through the third and
+slammed it in his face."
+
+"Then----"
+
+"He is there! Caught! Oh, Julius, did I do well? Please don't be angry
+with me! I was so afraid for you!"
+
+"How long have you been here?" he asked.
+
+"Not ten minutes, perhaps five minutes, I don't know. I have no
+knowledge of time. I came straight back to see you."
+
+He stood by the table, gnawing his finger, his head bowed in
+concentrated thought.
+
+"There, of all places!" he muttered; "there, of all places!"
+
+"Oh, Julius, I did my best," she said tearfully.
+
+He looked down at her with a little sneer.
+
+"Of course you did your best. You're a woman and you haven't brains."
+
+"I thought----"
+
+"You thought!" he sneered. "Who told you you could think? You fool!
+Don't you know it was a bluff, that he could no more arrest me than I
+could arrest him? Don't you realize--did he know you were in the habit
+of coming here?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I thought so," said van Heerden with a bitter laugh. "He knows you are
+in love with me and he played upon your fears. You poor little fool!
+Don't cry or I shall do something unpleasant. There, there. Help
+yourself to some wine, you'll find it in the tantalus."
+
+He strode up and down the room.
+
+"There's nothing to be done but to settle accounts with Mr. Beale," he
+said grimly. "Do you think he was watched?"
+
+"Oh no, no, Julius"--she checked her sobs--"I was so careful."
+
+She gave him a description of the journey and the precautions she had
+taken.
+
+"Well, perhaps you're not such a fool after all."
+
+He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a long-barrelled Browning
+pistol, withdrew the magazine from the butt, examined and replaced it,
+and slipped back the cover.
+
+"Yes, I think I must settle accounts with this gentleman, but I don't
+want to use this," he added thoughtfully, as he pushed up the
+safety-catch and dropped the weapon in his pocket; "we might be able to
+gas him. Anyway, you can do no more good or harm," he said cynically.
+
+She was speechless, her hands, clasped tightly at her breast, covered a
+damp ball of handkerchief, and her tear-stained face was upturned to
+his.
+
+"Now, dry your face." He stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
+"Perhaps what you have done is the best after all. Who knows? Anyway,"
+he said, speaking his thoughts aloud, "Beale knows about the Green Rust
+and it can't be very long before I have to go to earth, but only for a
+little time, my Hilda." He smiled, showing his white teeth, but it was
+not a pleasant smile, "only for a little time, and then," he threw up
+his arms, "we shall be rich beyond the dreams of Frankfurt."
+
+"You will succeed, I know you will succeed, Julius," she breathed, "if I
+could only help you! If you would only tell me what you are doing! What
+is the Green Rust? Is it some wonderful new explosive?"
+
+"Dry your face and go home," he said shortly, "you will find a detective
+outside the door watching you, but I do not think he will follow you."
+
+He dismissed the girl and followed her after an interval of time,
+striding boldly past the shadow and gaining the cab-stand in Shaftesbury
+Avenue without, so far as he could see, being followed. But he dismissed
+the cab in the neighbourhood of Baker Street and continued his journey
+on foot. He opened the little door leading into the yard but did not
+follow the same direction as the girl had led Stanford Beale. It was
+through another door that he entered the vault, which at one time had
+been the innocent repository of bubbling life and was now the factory
+where men worked diligently for the destruction of their fellows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE GREEN RUST FACTORY
+
+
+Stanford Beale spent a thoughtful three minutes in the darkness of the
+cellar passage to which Hilda Glaum had led him and then he began a
+careful search of his pockets. He carried a little silver cigar-lighter,
+which had fortunately been charged with petrol that afternoon, and this
+afforded him a beam of adequate means to take note of his surroundings.
+
+The space between the two locked doors was ten feet, the width of the
+passage three, the height about seven feet. The roof, as he had already
+noted, was vaulted. Now he saw that along the centre ran a strip of
+beading. There had evidently been an electric light installation here,
+probably before the new owners took possession, for at intervals was a
+socket for an electric bulb. The new occupants had covered these and the
+rest of the wall with whitewash, and yet the beading and the electric
+fittings looked comparatively new. One wall, that on his left as he had
+come in, revealed nothing under his close inspection, but on the right
+wall, midway between the two doors, there had been a notice painted in
+white letters on a black background, and this showed faintly through the
+thick coating of distemper which had been applied. He damped a
+handkerchief with his tongue and rubbed away some of the whitewash
+where the letters were least legible and read:
+
+
+                                AID
+                                LTER.
+                                ------
+                                ULANCE &
+                                T AID.
+
+
+This was evidently half an inscription which had been cut off exactly in
+the middle. To the left there was no sign of lettering. He puzzled the
+letters for a few moments before he came to an understanding.
+
+"Air-raid shelter. Ambulance and first aid!" he read.
+
+So that explained the new electric fittings. It was one of those
+underground cellars which had been ferreted out by the Municipality or
+the Government for the shelter of the people in the neighbourhood during
+air-raids in the Great War. Evidently there was extensive accommodation
+here, since this was also an ambulance post. Faintly discernible beneath
+the letters was a painted white hand which pointed downward. What had
+happened to the other half of the inscription? Obviously it had been
+painted on the door leading into the first-aid room and as obviously
+that door had been removed and had been bricked up. In the light of this
+discovery he made a more careful inspection of the wall to the left. For
+the space of four feet the brickwork was new. He tapped it. It sounded
+hollow. Pressing his back against the opposite wall to give him leverage
+he put his foot against the new brickwork and pushed.
+
+He knew that the class of workmanship which was put into this kind of
+job was not of the best, that only one layer of brick was applied, and
+it was a mechanical fact that pressure applied to the centre of new work
+would produce a collapse.
+
+At the first push he felt the wall sag. Releasing his pressure it came
+back. This time he put both feet against the wall and bracing his
+shoulders he put every ounce of strength in his body into a mighty
+heave. The next second he was lying on his back. The greater part of the
+wall had collapsed. He was curious enough to examine the work he had
+demolished. It had evidently been done by amateurs, and the whitewash
+which had been thickly applied to the passage was explained.
+
+A current of fresh air came to meet him as he stepped gingerly across
+the debris. A flight of six stone steps led down to a small room
+containing a sink and a water supply, two camp beds which had evidently
+been part of the ambulance equipment and which the new owners had not
+thought necessary to remove, and a broken chair. The room was still
+littered with the paraphernalia of first-aid. He found odd ends of
+bandages, empty medicine bottles and a broken glass measure on the shelf
+above the sink.
+
+What interested him more was a door which he had not dared to hope he
+would find. It was bolted on his side, and when he had slid this back he
+discovered to his relief that it was not locked. He opened it carefully,
+first extinguishing his light. Beyond the door was darkness and he
+snapped back the light again. The room led to another, likewise empty.
+There were a number of shelves, a few old wine-bins, a score of empty
+bottles, but nothing else. At the far corner was yet another door, also
+bolted on the inside. Evidently van Heerden did not intend this part of
+the vault to be used.
+
+He looked at the lock and found it was broken. He must be approaching
+the main workroom in this new factory, and it was necessary to proceed
+with caution. He took out his revolver, spun the cylinder and thrust it
+under his waistcoat, the butt ready to his hand. The drawing of the
+bolts was a long business. He could not afford to risk detection at this
+hour, and could only move them by a fraction of an inch at a time.
+Presently his work was done and he pulled the door cautiously.
+
+Instantly there appeared between door and jamb a bright green line of
+light. He dare not move it any farther, for he heard now the shuffle of
+feet, and occasionally the sound of hollow voices, muffled and
+indistinguishable. In that light the opening of the door would be seen,
+perhaps by a dozen pair of eyes. For all he knew every man in that room
+might be facing his way. He had expected to hear the noise of machinery,
+but beyond the strangled voices, occasionally the click of glass against
+glass and the shuff-shuff-shuff of slippered feet crossing the floor, he
+heard nothing.
+
+He pulled the door another quarter of an inch and glued his eye to the
+crack. At this angle he could only see one of the walls of the big vault
+and the end of a long vapour-lamp which stood in one of the cornices and
+which supplied the ghastly light. But presently he saw something which
+filled him with hope. Against the wall was a high shadow which even the
+overhead lamp did not wholly neutralize. It was an irregular shadow such
+as a stack of boxes might make, and it occurred to him that perhaps
+beyond his range of vision there was a barricade of empty cases which
+hid the door from the rest of the room.
+
+He spent nearly three-quarters of an hour taking a bearing based upon
+the problematical position of the lights, the height and density of the
+box screen and then boldly and rapidly opened the door, stepped through
+and closed it behind him. His calculations had been accurate. He found
+himself in a room, the extent of which he could only conjecture. What,
+however, interested him mostly was the accuracy of his calculation that
+the door was hidden. An "L"-shaped stack of crates was piled within two
+feet of the ceiling, and formed a little lobby to anybody entering the
+vault the way Beale had come. They were stacked neatly and methodically,
+and with the exception of two larger packing-cases which formed the
+"corner stone" the barrier was made of a large number of small boxes
+about ten inches square.
+
+There was a small step-ladder, evidently used by the person whose
+business it was to keep this stack in order. Beale lifted it
+noiselessly, planted it against the corner and mounted cautiously.
+
+He saw a large, broad chamber, its groined roof supported by six squat
+stone pillars. Light came not only from mercurial lamps affixed to the
+ceiling, but from others suspended above the three rows of benches
+which ran the length of the room.
+
+Mercurial lamps do not give a green light, as he knew, but a violet
+light, and the green effect was produced by shades of something which
+Beale thought was yellow silk, but which he afterwards discovered was
+tinted mica.
+
+At intervals along the benches sat white-clad figures, their faces
+hidden behind rubber masks, their hands covered with gloves. In front of
+each man was a small microscope under a glass shade, a pair of balances
+and a rack filled with shallow porcelain trays. Evidently the work on
+which they were engaged did not endanger their eyesight, for the
+eye-pieces in the masks were innocent of protective covering, a
+circumstance which added to the hideous animal-like appearance of the
+men. They all looked alike in their uniform garb, but one figure alone
+Beale recognized. There was no mistaking the stumpy form and the big
+head of the Herr Professor, whose appearance in Oliva Cresswell's room
+had so terrified that young lady.
+
+He had expected to see him, for he knew that this old German,
+poverty-stricken and ill-favoured, had been roped in by van Heerden, and
+Beale, who pitied the old man, had been engaged for a fortnight in
+trying to worm from the ex-professor of chemistry at the University of
+Heidelberg the location of van Heerden's secret laboratory. His efforts
+had been unsuccessful. There was a streak of loyalty in the old man,
+which had excited an irritable admiration in the detective but had
+produced nothing more.
+
+Beale's eyes followed the benches and took in every detail. Some of the
+men were evidently engaged in tests, and remained all the time with
+their eyes glued to their microscopes. Others were looking into their
+porcelain trays and stirring the contents with glass rods, now and again
+transferring something to a glass slide which was placed on the
+microscope and earnestly examined.
+
+Beale was conscious of a faint musty odour permeating the air, an
+indescribable earthy smell with a tang to it which made the delicate
+membrane of the nostrils smart and ache. He tied his handkerchief over
+his nose and mouth before he took another peep. Only part of the room
+was visible from his post of observation. What was going on immediately
+beneath the far side of the screen he could only conjecture. But he saw
+enough to convince him that this was the principal factory, from whence
+van Heerden was distilling the poison with which he planned humanity's
+death.
+
+Some of the workers were filling and sealing small test-tubes with the
+contents of dishes. These tubes were extraordinarily delicate of
+structure, and Beale saw at least three crumble and shiver in the hands
+of the fillers.
+
+Every bench held a hundred or so of these tubes and a covered gas-jet
+for heating the wax. The work went on methodically, with very little
+conversation between the masked figures (he saw that the masks covered
+the heads of the chemists so that not a vestige of hair showed), and
+only occasionally did one of them leave his seat and disappear through a
+door at the far end of the room, which apparently led to a canteen.
+
+Evidently the fumes against which they were protected were not virulent,
+for some of the men stripped their masks as soon as they left their
+benches.
+
+For half an hour he watched, and in the course of that time saw the
+process of filling the small boxes which formed his barrier and
+hiding-place with the sealed tubes. He observed the care with which the
+fragile tubes were placed in their beds of cotton wool, and had a
+glimpse of the lined interior of one of the boxes. He was on the point
+of lifting down a box to make a more thorough examination when he heard
+a quavering voice beneath him.
+
+"What you do here--eh?"
+
+Under the step-ladder was one of the workers who had slipped noiselessly
+round the corner of the pile and now stood, grotesque and menacing, his
+uncovered eyes glowering at the intruder, the black barrel of his
+Browning pistol covering the detective's heart.
+
+"Don't shoot, colonel," said Beale softly. "I'll come down."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH
+
+
+After all, it was for the best--van Heerden could almost see the hand of
+Providence in this deliverance of his enemy into his power. There must
+be a settlement with Beale, that play-acting drunkard, who had so
+deceived him at first.
+
+Dr. van Heerden could admire the ingenuity of his enemy and could kill
+him. He was a man whose mental poise permitted the paradox of detached
+attachments. At first he had regarded Stanford Beale as a smart police
+officer, the sort of man whom Pinkerton and Burns turn out by the score.
+Shrewd, assertive, indefatigable, such men piece together the scattered
+mosaics of humdrum crimes, and by their mechanical patience produce for
+the satisfaction of courts sufficient of the piece to reveal the design.
+They figure in divorce suits, in financial swindles and occasionally in
+more serious cases.
+
+Van Heerden knew instinctively their limitations and had too hastily
+placed Beale in a lower category than he deserved. Van Heerden came to
+his workroom by way of the buffet which he had established for the use
+of his employees. As he shut the steel door behind him he saw Milsom
+standing at the rough wooden sideboard which served as bar and table for
+the workers.
+
+"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Milsom, and then quickly, as he
+read the other's face: "Anything wrong?"
+
+"If the fact that the cleverest policeman in America or England is at
+present on the premises can be so described, then everything is wrong,"
+said van Heerden, and helped himself to a drink.
+
+"Here--in the laboratory?" demanded Milsom, fear in his eyes. "What do
+you mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you," said the other, and gave the story as he had heard it
+from Hilda Glaum.
+
+"He's in the old passage, eh?" said Milsom, thoughtfully, "well there's
+no reason why he should get out--alive."
+
+"He won't," said the other.
+
+"Was he followed--you saw nobody outside?"
+
+"We have nothing to fear on that score. He's working on his own."
+
+Milsom grunted.
+
+"What are we going to do with him?"
+
+"Gas him," said van Heerden, "he is certain to have a gun."
+
+Milsom nodded.
+
+"Wait until the men have gone. I let them go at three--a few at a time,
+and it wants half an hour to that. He can wait. He's safe where he is.
+Why didn't Hilda tell me? I never even saw her."
+
+"She went straight up from the old passage--through the men's door--she
+didn't trust you probably."
+
+Milsom smiled wryly. Though he controlled these works and knew half the
+doctor's secrets, he suspected that the quantity of van Heerden's trust
+was not greatly in excess of his girl's.
+
+"We'll wait," he said again, "there's no hurry and, anyway, I want to
+see you about old man Heyler."
+
+"Von Heyler? I thought you were rid of him?" said van Heerden in
+surprise, "that is the old fool that Beale has been after. He has been
+trying to suck him dry, and has had two interviews with him. I told you
+to send him to Deans Folly. Bridgers would have taken care of him."
+
+"Bridgers can look after nothing," said Milsom.
+
+His eyes roved along the benches and stopped at a worker at the farther
+end of the room.
+
+"He's quiet to-night," he said, "that fellow is too full of himself for
+my liking. Earlier in the evening before I arrived he pulled a gun on
+Schultz. He's too full of gunplay that fellow--excuse the idiom, but I
+was in the same tailor's shop at Portland Gaol as Ned Garrand, the
+Yankee bank-smasher."
+
+Van Heerden made a gesture of impatience.
+
+"About old Heyler," Milsom went on, "I know you think he's dangerous,
+so I've kept him here. There's a room where he can sleep, and he can
+take all the exercise he wants at night. But the old fool is
+restless--he's been asking me what is the object of his work."
+
+"He's difficult. Twice he has nearly betrayed me. As I told you in the
+car, I gave him some experimental work to do and he brought the result
+to me--that was the sample which fell into Beale's hands."
+
+"Mr. Beale is certainly a danger," said Milsom thoughtfully.
+
+Van Heerden made a move toward the laboratory, but Milsom's big hand
+detained him.
+
+"One minute, van Heerden," he said, "whilst you're here you'd better
+decide--when do we start dismantling? I've got to find some excuse to
+send these fellows away."
+
+Van Heerden thought.
+
+"In two days," he said, "that will give you time to clear. You can send
+the men--well, send them to Scotland, some out-of-the-way place where
+news doesn't travel. Tell them we're opening a new factory, and put them
+up at the local hotel."
+
+Milsom inclined his head.
+
+"That sounds easy," he said, "I could take charge of them until the time
+came to skip. One can get a boat at Greenock."
+
+"I shall miss you," said van Heerden frankly, "you were necessary to me,
+Milsom. You're the driving force I wanted, and the only man of my class
+and calibre I can ever expect to meet, one who would go into this
+business with me."
+
+They had reached the big vault and van Heerden stood regarding the scene
+of mental activity with something approaching complacency.
+
+"There is a billion in process of creation," he said.
+
+"I could never think in more than six figures," said Milsom, "and it is
+only under your cheering influence that I can stretch to seven. I am
+going to live in the Argentine, van Heerden. A house on a hill----"
+
+The other shivered, but Milsom went on.
+
+"A gorgeous palace of a house, alive with servants. A string band, a
+perfectly equipped laboratory where I can indulge my passion for
+research, a high-powered auto, wine of the rarest--ah!"
+
+Van Heerden looked at his companion curiously.
+
+"That appeals to you, does it? For me, the control of finance. Endless
+schemes of fortune; endless smashings of rivals, railways, ships, great
+industries juggled and shuffled--that is the life I plan."
+
+"Fine!" said the other laconically.
+
+They walked to a bench and the worker looked up and took off his mask.
+
+He was an old man, and grinned toothlessly at van Heerden.
+
+"Good evening, Signor Doctor," he said in Italian. "Science is long and
+life is short, signor."
+
+He chuckled and, resuming his mask, returned to his work, ignoring the
+two men as though they had no existence.
+
+"A little mad, old Castelli," said Milsom, "that's his one little
+piece--what crooked thing has he done?"
+
+"None that I know," said the other carelessly; "he lost his wife and two
+daughters in the Messina earthquake. I picked him up cheap. He's a
+useful chemist."
+
+They walked from bench to bench, but van Heerden's eyes continuously
+strayed to the door, behind which he pictured a caged Stanford Beale,
+awaiting his doom. The men were beginning to depart now. One by one they
+covered their instruments and their trays, slipped off their masks and
+overalls and disappeared through the door, upon which van Heerden's gaze
+was so often fixed. Their exit, however, would not take them near
+Beale's prison. A few paces along the corridor was another passage
+leading to the yard above, and it was by this way that Hilda Glaum had
+sped to the doctor's room.
+
+Presently all were gone save one industrious worker, who sat peering
+through the eye-piece of his microscope, immovable.
+
+"That's our friend Bridgers," said Milsom, "he's all lit up with the
+alkaloid of _Enythroxylon Coca_---- Well, Bridgers, nearly finished?"
+
+"Huh!" grunted the man without turning.
+
+Milsom shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We must let him finish what he's doing. He is quite oblivious to the
+presence of anybody when he has these fits of industry. By the way, the
+passing of our dear enemy"--he jerked his head to the passage
+door--"will make no change in your plans?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"You have no great anxiety to marry the widow?"
+
+"None," said the doctor.
+
+"And she isn't a widow yet."
+
+It was not Milsom who spoke, but the man at the bench, the industrious
+worker whose eye was still at the microscope.
+
+"Keep your comments to yourself," said van Heerden angrily, "finish your
+work and get out."
+
+"I've finished."
+
+The worker rose slowly and loosening the tapes of his mask pulled it
+off.
+
+"My name is Beale," he said calmly, "I think we've met before. Don't
+move, Milsom, unless you want to save living-expenses--I'm a fairly
+quick shot when I'm annoyed."
+
+Stanford Beale pushed back the microscope and seated himself on the edge
+of the bench.
+
+"You addressed me as Bridgers," he said, "you will find Mr. Bridgers in
+a room behind that stack of boxes. The fact is he surprised me spying
+and was all for shooting me up, but I induced him to come into my
+private office, so to speak, and the rest was easy--he dopes, doesn't
+he? He hadn't the strength of a rat. However, that is all beside the
+point; Dr. van Heerden, what have you to say against my arresting you
+out of hand on a conspiracy charge?"
+
+Van Heerden smiled contemptuously.
+
+"There are many things I can say," he said. "In the first place, you
+have no authority to arrest anybody. You're not a police officer but
+only an American amateur."
+
+"American, yes; but amateur, no," said Beale gently. "As to the
+authority, why I guess I can arrest you first and get the authority
+after."
+
+"On what charge?" demanded Milsom, "there is nothing secret about this
+place, except Doctor van Heerden's association with it--a professional
+man is debarred from mixing in commercial affairs. Is it a crime to run
+a----"
+
+He looked to van Heerden.
+
+"A germicide factory," said van Heerden promptly.
+
+"Suppose I know the character of this laboratory?" asked Beale quietly.
+
+"Carry that kind of story to the police and see what steps they will
+take," said van Heerden scornfully. "My dear Mr. Beale, as I have told
+you once before, you have been reading too much exciting detective
+fiction."
+
+"Very likely," he said, "but anyhow the little story that enthralls me
+just now is called the Green Terror, and I'm looking to you to supply a
+few of the missing pages. And I think you'll do it."
+
+The doctor was lighting a cigarette, and he looked at the other over the
+flaring match with a gleam of malicious amusement in his eyes.
+
+"Your romantic fancies would exasperate me, but for your evident
+sincerity. Having stolen my bride you seem anxious to steal my
+reputation," he said mockingly.
+
+"That," said Beale, slipping off the bench and standing, hands on hips,
+before the doctor, "would take a bit of finding. I tell you, van
+Heerden, that I'm going to call your bluff. I shall place this factory
+in the hands of the police, and I am going to call in the greatest
+scientists in England, France and America, to prove the charge I shall
+make against you on the strength of this!"
+
+He held up between his forefinger and thumb a crystal tube, filled to
+its seal with something that looked like green sawdust.
+
+"The world, the sceptical world, shall know the hell you are preparing
+for them." Stanford Beale's voice trembled with passion and his face was
+dark with the thought of a crime so monstrous that even the outrageous
+treatment of a woman who was more to him than all the world was for the
+moment obliterated from his mind in the contemplation of the danger
+which threatened humanity.
+
+"You say that the police and even the government of this country will
+dismiss my charge as being too fantastic for belief. You shall have the
+satisfaction of knowing that you are right. They think I am mad--but I
+will convince them! In this tube lies the destruction of all your
+fondest dreams, van Heerden. To realize those dreams you have murdered
+two men. For these you killed John Millinborn and the man Predeaux. But
+you shall not----"
+
+"_Bang!_"
+
+The explosion roared thunderously in the confined space of the vault.
+Beale felt the wind of the bullet and turned, pistol upraised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE SECRET OF THE GREEN RUST
+
+
+A dishevelled figure stood by the boxes, revolver in hand--it was
+Bridgers, the man he had left strapped and bound in the
+"ambulance-room," and Beale cursed the folly which had induced him to
+leave the revolver behind.
+
+"I'll fix you--you brute!" screamed Bridgers, "get away from him--ah!"
+
+Beale's hand flew up, a pencil of flame quivered and again the vault
+trembled to the deafening report.
+
+But Bridgers had dropped to cover. Again he shot, this time with
+unexpected effect. The bullet struck the fuse-box on the opposite wall
+and all the lights went out.
+
+Beale was still holding the glass tube, and this Milsom had seen. Quick
+as thought he hurled himself upon the detective, his big, powerful hands
+gripped the other's wrist and wrenched it round.
+
+Beale set his teeth and manoeuvred for a lock grip, but he was badly
+placed, pressed as he was against the edge of the bench. He felt van
+Heerden's fingers clawing at his hand and the tube was torn away.
+
+Then somebody pulled the revolver from the other hand and there was a
+scamper of feet. He groped his way through the blackness and ran into
+the pile of boxes. A bullet whizzed past him from the half-crazy
+Bridgers, but that was a risk he had to take. He heard the squeak of an
+opening door and stumbled blindly in its direction. Presently he found
+it. He had watched the other men go out and discovered the steps--two
+minutes later he was in the street.
+
+There was no sign of either of the two men. He found a policeman after
+he had walked half a mile, but that intelligent officer could not leave
+his beat and advised him to go to the police station. It was an
+excellent suggestion, for although the sergeant on duty was wholly
+unresponsive there was a telephone, and at the end of the telephone in
+his little Haymarket flat, a Superintendent McNorton, the mention of
+whose very name galvanized the police office to activity.
+
+"I have found the factory I've been looking for, McNorton," said Beale.
+"I'll explain the whole thing to you in the morning. What I want now is
+a search made of the premises."
+
+"We can't do that without a magistrate's warrant," said McNorton's
+voice, "but what we can do is to guard the premises until the warrant is
+obtained. Ask the station sergeant to speak on the 'phone--by the way,
+how is Miss Cresswell, better, I hope?"
+
+"Much better," said the young man shortly.
+
+It was unbelievable that she could ever fill his heart with the ache
+which came at the mention of her name.
+
+He made way for the station sergeant and later accompanied four men back
+to the laboratory. They found all the doors closed. Beale scaled the
+wall but failed to find a way in. He rejoined the sergeant on the other
+side of the wall.
+
+"What is the name of this street?" he asked.
+
+"Playbury Street, sir--this used to be Henderson's Wine Vaults in my
+younger days."
+
+Beale jotted down the address and finding a taxi drove back to the
+police station, wearied and sick at heart.
+
+He arrived in time to be a witness to a curious scene. In the centre of
+the charge-room and facing the sergeant's desk was a man of middle age,
+shabbily dressed, but bearing the indefinable air of one who had seen
+better days. The grey hair was carefully brushed from the familiar face
+and gave him that venerable appearance which pale eyes and a pair of
+thin straight lips (curled now in an amused smile) did their best to
+discount.
+
+By his side stood his captor, a station detective, a bored and apathetic
+man.
+
+"It seems," the prisoner was saying, as Stanford Beale came noiselessly
+into the room, "it seems that under this detestable system of police
+espionage, a fellow may not even take a walk in the cool of the
+morning."
+
+His voice was that of an educated man, his drawling address spoke of his
+confidence.
+
+"Now look here, Parson," said the station sergeant, in that friendly
+tone which the police adopt when dealing with their pet criminals, "you
+know as well as I do that under the Prevention of Crimes Act you, an old
+lag, are liable to be arrested if you are seen in any suspicious
+circumstances--you oughtn't to be wandering about the streets in the
+middle of the night, and if you do, why you mustn't kick because you're
+pinched--anything found on him, Smith?"
+
+"No, sergeant--he was just mouching round, so I pulled him in."
+
+"Where are you living now, Parson?"
+
+The man with extravagant care searched his pockets.
+
+"I have inadvertently left my card-case with my coiner's outfit," he
+said gravely, "but a wire addressed to the Doss House, Mine Street,
+Paddington, will find me--but I don't think I should try. At this moment
+I enjoy the protection of the law. In four days' time I shall be on the
+ocean--why, Mr. Beale?"
+
+Mr. Beale smiled.
+
+"Hullo, Parson--I thought you had sailed to-day."
+
+"The first-class berths are all taken and I will not travel to Australia
+with the common herd."
+
+He turned to the astonished sergeant.
+
+"Can I go--Mr. Beale will vouch for me?"
+
+As he left the charge-room he beckoned the detective, and when they were
+together in the street Beale found that all the Parson's flippancy had
+departed.
+
+"I'm sorry I got you into that scrape," he said seriously. "I ought to
+have been unfrocked, but I was sentenced for my first crime under an
+assumed name. I was not attached to any church at the time and my
+identity has never been discovered. Mr. Beale," he went on with a
+quizzical smile, "I have yet to commit my ideal crime--the murder of a
+bishop who allows a curate to marry a wife on sixty pounds a year." His
+face darkened, and Beale found himself wondering at the contents of the
+tragic years behind the man. Where was the wife...?
+
+"But my private grievances against the world will not interest you,"
+Parson Homo resumed, "I only called you out to--well, to ask your
+pardon."
+
+"It was my own fault, Homo," said Beale quietly, and held out his hand.
+"Good luck--there may be a life for you in the new land."
+
+He stood till the figure passed out of sight, then turned wearily toward
+his own rooms. He went to his room and lay down on his bed fully
+dressed. He was aroused from a troubled sleep by the jangle of the
+'phone. It was McNorton.
+
+"Come down to Scotland House and see the Assistant-Commissioner," he
+said, "he is very anxious to hear more about this factory. He tells me
+that you have already given him an outline of the plot."
+
+"Yes--I'll give you details--I'll be with you in half an hour."
+
+He had a bath and changed his clothes, and breakfastless, for the woman
+who waited on him and kept his flat and who evidently thought his
+absence was likely to be a long one, had not arrived. He drove to the
+grim grey building on the Thames Embankment.
+
+Assistant-Commissioner O'Donnel, a white-haired police veteran, was
+waiting for him, and McNorton was in the office.
+
+"You look fagged," said the commissioner, "take that chair--and you
+look hungry, too. Have you breakfasted?"
+
+Beale shook his head with a smile.
+
+"Get him something, McNorton--ring that bell. Don't protest, my good
+fellow--I've had exactly the same kind of nights as you've had, and I
+know that it is grub that counts more than sleep."
+
+He gave an order to an attendant and not until twenty minutes later,
+when Beale had finished a surprisingly good meal in the superintendent's
+room, did the commissioner allow the story to be told.
+
+"Now I'm ready," he said.
+
+"I'll begin at the beginning," said Stanford Beale. "I was a member of
+the United States Secret Service until after the war when, at the
+request of Mr. Kitson, who is known to you, I came to Europe to devote
+all my time to watching Miss Cresswell and Doctor van Heerden. All that
+you know.
+
+"One day when searching the doctor's rooms in his absence, my object
+being to discover some evidence in relation to the Millinborn murder, I
+found this."
+
+He took a newspaper cutting from his pocket-book and laid it on the
+table.
+
+"It is from _El Impartial_, a Spanish newspaper, and I will translate it
+for you.
+
+
+     "'Thanks to the discretion and eminent genius of Dr. Alphonso
+     Romanos, the Chief Medical Officer of Vigo, the farmers of the
+     district have been spared a catastrophe much lamentable' (I am
+     translating literally). 'On Monday last, Senor Don Marin Fernardey,
+     of La Linea, discovered one of his fields of corn had died in the
+     night and was already in a condition of rot. In alarm, he notified
+     the Chief of Medicines at Vigo, and Dr. Alphonso Romanos, with that
+     zeal and alacrity which has marked his acts, was quickly on the
+     spot, accompanied by a foreign scientist. Happily the learned and
+     gentle doctor is a bacteriologist superb. An examination of the
+     dead corn, which already emitted unpleasant odours, revealed the
+     presence of a new disease, the verde orin (green rust). By his
+     orders the field was burnt. Fortunately, the area was small and
+     dissociated from the other fields of Senor Fernardey by wide
+     _zanzas_. With the exception of two small pieces of the infected
+     corn, carried away by Dr. Romanos and the foreign medical-cavalier,
+     the pest was incinerated.'"
+
+
+"The Foreign Medical-Cavalier," said Beale, "was Doctor van Heerden. The
+date was 1915, when the doctor was taking his summer holiday, and I have
+had no difficulty in tracing him. I sent one of my men to Vigo to
+interview Doctor Romanos, who remembers the circumstances perfectly. He
+himself had thought it wisest to destroy the germ after carefully noting
+their characteristics, and he expressed the anxious hope that his whilom
+friend, van Heerden, had done the same. Van Heerden, of course, did
+nothing of the sort. He has been assiduously cultivating the germs in
+his laboratory. So far as I can ascertain from Professor Heyler, an old
+German who was in van Heerden's service and who seems a fairly honest
+man, the doctor nearly lost the culture, and it was only by sending out
+small quantities to various seedy scientists and getting them to
+experiment in the cultivation of the germ under various conditions that
+he found the medium in which they best flourish. It is, I believe,
+fermented rye-flour, but I am not quite sure."
+
+"To what purpose do you suggest van Heerden will put his cultivations?"
+asked the commissioner.
+
+"I am coming to that. In the course of my inquiries and searchings I
+found that he was collecting very accurate data concerning the great
+wheatfields of the world. From the particulars he was preparing I formed
+the idea that he intended, and intends, sending an army of agents all
+over the world who, at a given signal, will release the germs in the
+growing wheat."
+
+"But surely a few germs sprinkled on a great wheatfield such as you find
+in America would do no more than local damage?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"Mr. O'Donnel," he said soberly, "if I broke a tube of that stuff in
+the corner of a ten-thousand-acre field the whole field would be rotten
+in twenty-four hours! It spreads from stalk to stalk with a rapidity
+that is amazing. One germ multiplies itself in a living cornfield a
+billion times in twelve hours. It would not only be possible, but
+certain that twenty of van Heerden's agents in America could destroy the
+harvests of the United States in a week."
+
+"But why should he do this--he is a German, you say--and Germans do not
+engage in frightfulness unless they see a dividend at the end of it."
+
+"There is a dividend--a dividend of millions at the end of it," said
+Beale, graver, "that much I know. I cannot tell you any more yet. But I
+can say this: that up till yesterday van Heerden was carrying on the
+work without the aid of his Government. That is no longer the case.
+There is now a big syndicate in existence to finance him, and the
+principal shareholder is the German Government. He has already spent
+thousands, money he has borrowed and money he has stolen. As a side-line
+and sheerly to secure her money he carried off John Millinborn's heiress
+with the object of forcing her into a marriage."
+
+The commissioner chewed the end of his cigar.
+
+"This is a State matter and one on which I must consult the Home Office.
+You tell me that the Foreign Office believe your story--of course I do,
+too," he added quickly, "though it sounds wildly improbable. Wait here."
+
+He took up his hat and went out.
+
+"It is going to be a difficult business to convict van Heerden," said
+the superintendent when his chief had gone, "you see, in the English
+courts, motive must be proved to convict before a jury, and there seems
+no motive except revenge. A jury would take a lot of convincing that a
+man spent thousands of pounds to avenge a wrong done to his country."
+
+Beale had no answer to this. At the back of his mind he had a dim idea
+of the sheer money value of the scheme, but he needed other evidence
+than he possessed. The commissioner returned soon after.
+
+"I have been on the 'phone to the Under-Secretary, and we will take
+action against van Heerden on the evidence the factory offers. I'll put
+you in charge of the case, McNorton, you have the search-warrant
+already? Good!"
+
+He shook hands with Beale.
+
+"You will make a European name over this, Mr. Beale," he said.
+
+"I hope Europe will have nothing more to talk about," said Beale.
+
+They passed back to McNorton's office.
+
+"I'll come right along," said the superintendent. He was taking his hat
+from a peg when he saw a closed envelope lying on his desk.
+
+"From the local police station," he said. "How long has this been here?"
+
+His clerk shook his head.
+
+"I can't tell you, sir--it has been there since I came in."
+
+"H'm--I must have overlooked it. Perhaps it is news from your factory."
+
+He tore it open, scanned the contents and swore.
+
+"There goes your evidence, Beale," he said.
+
+"What is it?" asked Beale quickly.
+
+"The factory was burned to the ground in the early hours of the
+morning," he said. "The fire started in the old wine vault and the whole
+building has collapsed."
+
+The detective stared out of the window.
+
+"Can we arrest van Heerden on the evidence of Professor Heyler?"
+
+For answer McNorton handed him the letter. It ran:
+
+
+     "From Inspector-in-charge, S. Paddington, to Supt. McNorton.
+     Factory in Playbury St. under P.O. (Police Observation) completely
+     destroyed by fire, which broke out in basement at 5.20 this
+     morning. One body found, believed to be a man named Heyler."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD
+
+
+There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a
+menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of
+pillows, gives to the golden sunlight which filters through a billion
+panes the very hues and character of jaundice. It is the menace of
+factory and workshop, harsh prisons which shut men and women from the
+green fields and the pleasant by-ways; the menace of new
+responsibilities to be faced and new difficulties to be overcome. Into
+the space of Monday morning drain the dregs of last week's commitments
+to gather into stagnant pools upon the desks and benches of toiling and
+scheming humanity. It is the end of the holiday, the foot of the new
+hill whose crest is Saturday night and whose most pleasant outlook is
+the Sunday to come.
+
+Men go to their work reluctant and resentful and reach out for the
+support which the lunch-hour brings. One o'clock in London is about six
+o'clock in Chicago. Therefore the significance of shoals of cablegrams
+which lay on the desks of certain brokers was not wholly apparent until
+late in the evening, and was not thoroughly understood until late on
+Tuesday morning, when to other and greater shoals of cables came the
+terse price-lists from the Board of Trade in Chicago, and on top of all
+the wirelessed Press accounts for the sensational jump in wheat.
+
+"Wheat soaring," said one headline. "Frantic scenes in the Pit," said
+another. "Wheat reaches famine price," blared a third.
+
+Beale passing through to Whitehall heard the shrill call of the newsboys
+and caught the word "wheat." He snatched a paper from the hands of a boy
+and read.
+
+Every corn-market in the Northern Hemisphere was in a condition of
+chaos. Prices were jumping to a figure beyond any which the most
+stringent days of the war had produced.
+
+He slipped into a telephone booth, gave a Treasury number and McNorton
+answered.
+
+"Have you seen the papers?" he asked.
+
+"No, but I've heard. You mean about the wheat boom?"
+
+"Yes--the game has started."
+
+"Where are you--wait for me, I'll join you."
+
+Three minutes later McNorton appeared from the Whitehall end of Scotland
+Yard. Beale hailed a cab and they drove to the hotel together.
+
+"Warrants have been issued for van Heerden and Milsom and the girl
+Glaum," he said. "I expect we shall find the nest empty, but I have sent
+men to all the railway stations--do you think we've moved too late?"
+
+"Everything depends on the system that van Heerden has adopted," replied
+Beale, "he is the sort of man who would keep everything in his own
+hands. If he has done that, and we catch him, we may prevent a world
+catastrophe."
+
+At the hotel they found Kitson waiting in the vestibule.
+
+"Well?" he asked, "I gather that you've lost van Heerden, but if the
+newspapers mean anything, his hand is down on the table. Everybody is
+crazy here," he said, as he led the way to the elevator, "I've just been
+speaking to the Under-Minister for Agriculture--all Europe is scared.
+Now what is the story?" he asked, when they were in his room.
+
+He listened attentively and did not interrupt until Stanford Beale had
+finished.
+
+"That's big enough," he said. "I owe you an apology--much as I was
+interested in Miss Cresswell, I realize that her fate was as nothing
+beside the greater issue."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked McNorton.
+
+"The Wheat Panic? God knows. It may mean bread at a guinea a pound--it
+is too early to judge."
+
+The door was opened unceremoniously and a man strode in. McNorton was
+the first to recognize the intruder and rose to his feet.
+
+"I'm sorry to interrupt you," said Lord Sevington--it was the Foreign
+Secretary of Great Britain himself. "Well, Beale, the fantastic story
+you told me seems in a fair way to being realized."
+
+"This is Mr. Kitson," introduced Stanford, and the grey-haired statesman
+bowed.
+
+"I sent for you, but decided I couldn't wait--so I came myself. Ah,
+McNorton, what are the chances of catching van Heerden?"
+
+"No man has ever escaped from this country once his identity was
+established," said the police chief hopefully.
+
+"If we had taken Beale's advice we should have the gentleman under lock
+and key," said the Foreign Minister, shaking his head. "You probably
+know that Mr. Beale has been in communication with the Foreign Office
+for some time?" he said, addressing Kitson.
+
+"I did not know," admitted the lawyer.
+
+"We thought it was one of those brilliant stories which the American
+newspaper reporter loves," smiled the minister.
+
+"I don't quite get the commercial end of it," said Kitson. "How does van
+Heerden benefit by destroying the crops of the world?"
+
+"He doesn't benefit, because the crops won't be destroyed," said the
+minister. "The South Russian crops are all right, the German crops are
+intact--but are practically all mortgaged to the German Government."
+
+"The Government?"
+
+"This morning the German Government have made two announcements. The
+first is the commandeering of all the standing crops, and at the same
+time the taking over of all options on the sale of wheat. Great
+granaries are being established all over Germany. The old Zeppelin
+sheds----"
+
+"Great heavens!" cried Kitson, and stared at Stanford Beale. "That was
+the reason they took over the sheds?"
+
+"A pretty good reason, too," said Beale, "storage is everything in a
+crisis like this. What is the second announcement, sir?"
+
+"They prohibit the export of grain," said Lord Sevington, "the whole of
+Germany is to be rationed for a year, bread is to be supplied by the
+Government free of all cost to the people; in this way Germany handles
+the surpluses for us to buy."
+
+"What will she charge?"
+
+"What she wishes. If van Heerden's scheme goes through, if throughout
+the world the crops are destroyed and only that which lies under
+Germany's hand is spared, what must we pay? Every penny we have taken
+from Germany; every cent of her war costs must be returned to her in
+exchange for wheat."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why impossible? There is no limit to the price of rarities. What is
+rarer than gold is more costly than gold. You who are in the room are
+the only people in the world who know the secret of the Green Rust, and
+I can speak frankly to you. I tell you that we must either buy from
+Germany or make war on Germany, and the latter course is impossible, and
+if it were possible would give us no certainty of relief. We shall have
+to pay, Britain, France, America, Italy--we shall have to pay. We shall
+pay in gold, we may have to pay in battleships and material. Our stocks
+of corn have been allowed to fall and to-day we have less than a month's
+supply in England. Every producing country in the world will stop
+exporting instantly, and they, too, with the harvest nearly due, will be
+near the end of their stocks. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, in your judgment,
+is it possible to save the crops by local action?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"I doubt it," he said; "it would mean the mobilisation of millions of
+men, the surrounding of all corn-tracts--and even then I doubt if your
+protection would be efficacious. You could send the stuff into the
+fields by a hundred methods. The only thing to do is to catch van
+Heerden and stifle the scheme at its fountain-head."
+
+The Chief of the Foreign Ministry strode up and down the room, his hands
+thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.
+
+"It means our holding out for twelve months," he said. "Can we do it?"
+
+"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.
+
+Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.
+
+"More than that? What do you mean?"
+
+"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have
+consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be
+infected for ten years."
+
+The four men looked at one another helplessly.
+
+"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric
+of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a
+hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very
+end of civilization!"
+
+Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.
+
+Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of
+a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.
+
+Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more
+human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were
+studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.
+
+McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped
+and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a
+sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble
+of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill
+high-pitched whine of a newsboy.
+
+Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare
+headlines than a newspaper sensation.
+
+To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but
+for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would
+turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.
+
+"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I
+had on August 1, 1914--that sensation of unreality."
+
+His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into
+which he had fallen, and he started.
+
+"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to act--Mr. McNorton,
+you will go back to Scotland Yard and ask the Chief Commissioner to
+attend at the office of the Privy Seal. Mr. Beale will keep in touch
+with me all the time."
+
+Without any formal leave-taking he made his exit, followed by
+Superintendent McNorton.
+
+"That's a badly rattled man," said Kitson shrewdly, "the Government may
+fall on this news. What will you do?"
+
+"Get van Heerden," said the other.
+
+"It is the job of your life," said Kitson quietly, and Beale knew within
+a quarter of an hour that the lawyer did not exaggerate.
+
+Van Heerden had disappeared with dramatic suddenness. Detectives who
+visited his flat discovered that his personal belongings had been
+removed in the early hours of the morning. He had left with two trunks
+(which were afterwards found in a cloak-room of a London railway
+terminus) and a companion who was identified as Milsom. Whether the car
+had gone east or north, south or west, nobody knew.
+
+In the early editions of the evening newspapers, side by side with the
+account of the panic scenes on 'Change was the notice:
+
+
+     "The Air Ministry announce the suspension of Order 63 of
+     Trans-Marine Flight Regulations. No aeroplane will be allowed to
+     cross the coastline by day or night without first descending at a
+     coast control station. Aerial patrols have orders to force down any
+     machine which does not obey the 'Descend' signal. This signal is
+     now displayed at all coast stations."
+
+
+Every railway station in England, every port of embarkation, were
+watched by police. The one photograph of van Heerden in existence,
+thousands of copies of an excellent snapshot taken by one of Beale's
+assistants, were distributed by aeroplane to every district centre. At
+two o'clock Hilda Glaum was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street. She
+showed neither surprise nor resentment and offered no information as to
+van Heerden's whereabouts.
+
+Throughout the afternoon there were the usual crops of false arrest and
+detention of perfectly innocent people, and at five o'clock it was
+announced that all telegraphic communication with the Continent and with
+the Western Hemisphere was suspended until further notice.
+
+Beale came back from Barking, whither he had gone to interview a
+choleric commercial traveller who bore some facial resemblance to van
+Heerden, and had been arrested in consequence, and discovered that
+something like a Council of War was being held in Kitson's private room.
+
+McNorton and two of his assistants were present. There was an
+Under-Secretary from the Foreign Office, a great scientist whose
+services had been called upon, and a man whom he recognized as a member
+of the Committee of the Corn Exchange. He shook his head in answer to
+McNorton's inquiring glance, and would have taken his seat at the table,
+but Kitson, who had risen on his entrance, beckoned him to the window.
+
+"We can do without you for a little while, Beale," he said, lowering his
+voice. "There's somebody there," he jerked his head to a door which led
+to another room of his suite, "who requires an explanation, and I think
+your time will be so fully occupied in the next few days that you had
+better seize this opportunity whilst you have it."
+
+"Miss Cresswell!" said Beale, in despair.
+
+The old man nodded slowly.
+
+"What does she know?"
+
+"That is for you to discover," said Kitson gently, and pushed him toward
+the door.
+
+With a quaking heart he turned the knob and stepped guiltily into the
+presence of the girl who in the eyes of the law was his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM
+
+
+She rose to meet him, and he stood spellbound, still holding the handle
+of the door. It seemed that she had taken on new qualities, a new and an
+ethereal grace. At the very thought even of his technical possession of
+this smiling girl who came forward to greet him, his heart thumped so
+loudly that he felt she must hear it. She was pale, and there were dark
+shadows under her eyes, but the hand that gripped his was firm and warm
+and living.
+
+"I have to thank you for much, Mr. Beale," she said. "Mr. Kitson has
+told me that I owe my rescue to you."
+
+"Did he?" he asked awkwardly, and wondered what else Kitson had told
+her.
+
+"I am trying to be very sensible, and I want you to help me, because you
+are the most sensible man I know."
+
+She went back to the lounge-chair where she had been sitting, and
+pointed to another.
+
+"It was horribly melodramatic, wasn't it? but I suppose the life of a
+detective is full of melodrama."
+
+"Oh, brimming over," he said. "If you keep very quiet I will give you a
+resume of my most interesting cases," he said, making a pathetic attempt
+to be flippant, and the girl detected something of his insincerity.
+
+"You have had a trying day," she said, with quick sympathy, "have you
+arrested Doctor van Heerden?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I am glad," she said.
+
+"Glad?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Before he is arrested," she spoke with some hesitation, "I want one
+little matter cleared up. I asked Mr. Kitson, but he put me off and said
+you would tell me everything."
+
+"What is it?" he asked steadily.
+
+She got up and went to her bag which stood upon a side-table, opened it
+and took out something which she laid on the palm of her hand. She came
+back with hand extended, and Beale looked at the glittering object on
+her palm and was speechless.
+
+"Do you see that?" she asked.
+
+He nodded, having no words for the moment, for "that" was a thin gold
+ring.
+
+"It is a wedding ring," she said, "and I found it on my finger when I
+recovered."
+
+"Oh!" said Beale blankly.
+
+"Was I married?" she asked.
+
+He made two or three ineffectual attempts to speak and ended by nodding.
+
+"I feared so," she said quietly, "you see I recollect nothing of what
+happened. The last thing I remembered was Doctor van Heerden sitting
+beside me and putting something into my arm. It hurt a little, but not
+very much, and I remember I spoke to him. I think it was about you," a
+little colour came to her face, "or perhaps he was speaking about you, I
+am not sure," she said hurriedly; "I know that you came into it somehow,
+and that is all I can recall."
+
+"Nothing else?" he asked dismally.
+
+"Nothing," she said.
+
+"Try, try, try to remember," he urged her.
+
+He realized he was being a pitiable coward and that he wanted to shift
+the responsibility for the revelation upon her. She smiled, and shook
+her head.
+
+"I am sorry but I can't remember anything. Now you are going to tell
+me."
+
+He discovered that he was sitting on the edge of the chair and that he
+was more nervous than he had ever been in his life.
+
+"So I am going to tell you," he said, in a hollow voice, "of course I'll
+tell you. It is rather difficult, you understand."
+
+She looked at him kindly.
+
+"I know it must be difficult for a man like you to speak of your own
+achievements. But for once you are going to be immodest," she laughed.
+
+"Well, you see," he began, "I knew van Heerden wanted to marry you. I
+knew that all along. I guessed he wanted to marry you for your money,
+because in the circumstances there was nothing else he could want to
+marry you for," he added. "I mean," he corrected himself hastily, "that
+money was the most attractive thing to him."
+
+"This doesn't sound very flattering," she smiled.
+
+"I know I am being crude, but you will forgive me when you learn what I
+have to say," he said huskily. "Van Heerden wanted to marry you----"
+
+"And he married me," she said, "and I am going to break that marriage as
+soon as I possibly can."
+
+"I know, I hope so," said Stanford Beale. "I believe it is difficult,
+but I will do all I possibly can. Believe me, Miss Cresswell----"
+
+"I am not Miss Cresswell any longer," she said with a wry little face,
+"but please don't call me by my real name."
+
+"I won't," he said fervently.
+
+"You knew he wanted to marry me for my money and not for my beauty or my
+accomplishments," she said, "and so you followed me down to Deans
+Folly."
+
+"Yes, yes, but I must explain. I know it will sound horrible to you and
+you may have the lowest opinion of me, but I have got to tell you."
+
+He saw the look of alarm gather in her eyes and plunged into his story.
+
+"I thought that if you were already married van Heerden would be
+satisfied and take no further steps against you."
+
+"But I wasn't already married," she said, puzzled.
+
+"Wait, wait, please," he begged, "keep that in your mind, that I was
+satisfied van Heerden wanted you for your money, and that if you were
+already married or even if you weren't and he thought you were I could
+save you from dangers, the extent of which even I do not know. And there
+was a man named Homo, a crook. He had been a parson and had all the
+manner and style of his profession. So I got a special licence in my own
+name."
+
+"You?" she said breathlessly. "A marriage licence? To marry me?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"And I took Homo with me in my search for you. I knew that I should have
+a very small margin of time, and I thought if Homo performed the
+ceremony and I could confront van Heerden with the accomplished
+deed----"
+
+She sprang to her feet with a laugh.
+
+"Oh, I see, I see," she said. "Oh, how splendid! And you went through
+this mock ceremony! Where was I?"
+
+"You were at the window," he said miserably.
+
+"But how lovely! And you were outside and your parson with the funny
+name--but that's delicious! So I wasn't married at all and this is your
+ring." She picked it up with a mocking light in her eyes, and held it
+out to him, but he shook his head.
+
+"You were married," he said, in a voice which was hardly audible.
+
+"Married? How?"
+
+"Homo was not a fake! He was a real clergyman! And the marriage was
+legal!"
+
+They looked at one another without speaking. On the girl's part there
+was nothing but pure amazement; but Stanford Beale read horror,
+loathing, consternation and unforgiving wrath, and waited, as the
+criminal waits for his sentence, upon her next words.
+
+"So I am really married--to you," she said wonderingly.
+
+"You will never forgive me, I know." He did not look at her now. "My own
+excuse is that I did what I did because I--wanted to save you. I might
+have sailed in with a gun and shot them up. I might have waited my
+chance and broken into the house. I might have taken a risk and
+surrounded the place with police, but that would have meant delay. I
+didn't do the normal things or take the normal view--I couldn't with
+you."
+
+He did not see the momentary tenderness in her eyes, because he was not
+looking at her, and went on:
+
+"That's the whole of the grisly story. Mr. Kitson will advise you as to
+what steps you may take to free yourself. It was a most horrible
+blunder, and it was all the more tragic because you were the victim,
+you of all the persons in the world!"
+
+She had put the ring down, and now she took it up again and examined it
+curiously.
+
+"It is rather--quaint, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, very."
+
+He thought he heard a sob and looked up. She was laughing, at first
+silently, then, as the humour of the thing seized her, her laugh rang
+clear and he caught its infection.
+
+"It's funny," she said at last, wiping her eyes, "there is a humorous
+side to it. Poor Mr. Beale!"
+
+"I deserve a little pity," he said ruefully.
+
+"Why?" she asked quickly. "Have you committed bigamy?"
+
+"Not noticeably so," he answered, with a smile.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do about it? It's rather serious when one
+thinks of it--seriously. So I am Mrs. Stanford Beale--poor Mr. Beale,
+and poor Mrs. Beale-to-be. I do hope," she said, and this time her
+seriousness was genuine, "that I have not upset any of your plans--too
+much. Oh," she sat down suddenly, staring at him, "it would be awful,"
+she said in a hushed voice, "and I would never forgive myself. Is
+there--forgive my asking the question, but I suppose," with a flashing
+smile, "as your wife I am entitled to your confidence--is there somebody
+you are going to marry?"
+
+"I have neither committed bigamy nor do I contemplate it," said Beale,
+who was gradually recovering his grip of the situation, "if you mean am
+I engaged to somebody--in fact, to a girl," he said recklessly, "the
+answer is in the negative. There will be no broken hearts on my side of
+the family. I have no desire to probe your wounded heart----"
+
+"Don't be flippant," she stopped him sternly; "it is a very terrible
+situation, Mr. Beale, and I hardly dare to think of it."
+
+"I realize how terrible it is," he said, suddenly bold, "and as I tell
+you, I will do everything I can to correct my blunder."
+
+"Does Mr. Kitson know?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"What did Mr. Kitson say? Surely he gave you some advice."
+
+"He said----" began Stanford, and went red.
+
+The girl did not pursue the subject.
+
+"Come, let us talk about the matter like rational beings," she said
+cheerfully. "I have got over my first inclination to swoon. You must
+curb your very natural desire to be haughty."
+
+"I cannot tell you what we can do yet. I don't want to discuss the
+unpleasant details of a divorce," he said, "and perhaps you will let me
+have a few days before we decide on any line of action. Van Heerden is
+still at large, and until he is under lock and key and this immense
+danger which threatens the world is removed, I can hardly think
+straight."
+
+"Mr. Kitson has told me about van Heerden," she said quietly. "Isn't it
+rather a matter for the English police to deal with? As I have reason to
+know," she shivered slightly, "Doctor van Heerden is a man without any
+fear or scruple."
+
+"My scruples hardly keep me awake at night," he said, "and I guess I'm
+not going to let up on van Heerden. I look upon it as my particular
+job."
+
+"Isn't it"--she hesitated--"isn't it rather dangerous?"
+
+"For me?" he laughed, "no, I don't think so. And even if it were in the
+most tragic sense of the word dangerous, why, that would save you a
+great deal of unpleasantness."
+
+"I think you are being horrid," she said.
+
+"I am sorry," he responded quickly, "I was fishing for a little pity,
+and it was rather cheap and theatrical. No, I do not think there is very
+much danger. Van Heerden is going to keep under cover, and he is after
+something bigger than my young life."
+
+"Is Milsom with him?"
+
+"He is the weak link in van Heerden's scheme," Beale said. "Somehow van
+Heerden doesn't strike me as a good team leader, and what little I have
+seen of Milsom leads me to the belief that he is hardly the man to
+follow the doctor's lead blindly. Besides, it is always easier to catch
+two men than one," he laughed. "That is an old detective's axiom and it
+works out."
+
+She put out her hand.
+
+"It's a tangled business, isn't it?" she said. "I mean us. Don't let it
+add to your other worries. Forget our unfortunate relationship until we
+can smooth things out."
+
+He shook her hand in silence.
+
+"And now I am coming out to hear all that you clever people suggest,"
+she said. "Please don't look alarmed. I have been talking all the
+afternoon and have been narrating my sad experience--such as I
+remember--to the most important people. Cabinet Ministers and police
+commissioners and doctors and things."
+
+"One moment," he said.
+
+He took from his pocket a stout book.
+
+"I was wondering what that was," she laughed. "You haven't been buying
+me reading-matter?"
+
+He nodded, and held the volume so that she could read the title.
+
+"'A Friend in Need,' by S. Beale. I didn't know you wrote!" she said in
+surprise.
+
+"I am literary and even worse," he said flippantly. "I see you have a
+shelf of books here. If you will allow me I will put it with the
+others."
+
+"But mayn't I see it?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I just want to tell you all you have said about van Heerden is true. He
+is a most dangerous man. He may yet be dangerous to you. I don't want
+you to touch that little book unless you are in really serious trouble.
+Will you promise me?"
+
+She opened her eyes wide.
+
+"But, Mr. Beale----?"
+
+"Will you promise me?" he said again.
+
+"Of course I'll promise you, but I don't quite understand."
+
+"You will understand," he said.
+
+He opened the door for her and she passed out ahead of him. Kitson came
+to meet them.
+
+"I suppose there is no news?" asked Stanford.
+
+"None," said the other, "except high political news. There has been an
+exchange of notes between the Triple Alliance and the German Government.
+All communication with the Ukraine is cut off, and three ships have been
+sunk in the Bosphorus so cleverly that our grain ships in the Black Sea
+are isolated."
+
+"That's bad," said Beale.
+
+He walked to the table. It was littered with maps and charts and printed
+tabulations. McNorton got up and joined them.
+
+"I have just had a 'phone message through from the Yard," he said.
+"Carter, my assistant, says that he's certain van Heerden has not left
+London."
+
+"Has the girl spoken?"
+
+"Glaum? No, she's as dumb as an oyster. I doubt if you would get her to
+speak even if you put her through the third degree, and we don't allow
+that."
+
+"So I am told," said Beale dryly.
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Unlock it somebody," said Kitson. "I turned the key."
+
+The nearest person was the member of the Corn Exchange Committee, and he
+clicked back the lock and the door opened to admit a waiter.
+
+"There's a man here----" he said; but before he could say more he was
+pushed aside and a dusty, dishevelled figure stepped into the room and
+glanced round.
+
+"My name is Milsom," he said. "I have come to give King's Evidence!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE LOST CODE
+
+
+"I'm Milsom," said the man in the doorway again.
+
+His clothes were grimed and dusty, his collar limp and soiled. There
+were two days' growth of red-grey stubble on his big jaw, and he bore
+himself like a man who was faint from lack of sleep.
+
+He walked unsteadily to the table and fell into a chair.
+
+"Where is van Heerden?" asked Beale, but Milsom shook his head.
+
+"I left him two hours ago, after a long and unprofitable talk on
+patriotism," he said, and laughed shortly. "At that time he was making
+his way back to his house in Southwark."
+
+"Then he is in London--here in London!"
+
+Milsom nodded.
+
+"You won't find him," he said brusquely. "I tell you I've left him after
+a talk about certain patriotic misgivings on my part--look!"
+
+He lifted his right hand, which hitherto he had kept concealed by his
+side, and Oliva shut her eyes and felt deathly sick.
+
+"Right index digit and part of the phalanges shot away," said Milsom
+philosophically. "That was my trigger-finger--but he shot first. Give me
+a drink!"
+
+They brought him a bottle of wine, and he drank it from a long tumbler
+in two great breathless gulps.
+
+"You've closed the coast to him," he said, "you shut down your wires and
+cables, you're watching the roads, but he'll get his message through,
+if----"
+
+"Then he hasn't cabled?" said Beale eagerly. "Milsom, this means liberty
+for you--liberty and comfort. Tell us the truth, man, help us hold off
+this horror that van Heerden is loosing on the world and there's no
+reward too great for you."
+
+Milsom's eyes narrowed.
+
+"It wasn't the hope of reward or hope of pardon that made me break with
+van Heerden," he said in his slow way. "You'd laugh yourself sick if I
+told you. It was--it was the knowledge that this country would be down
+and out; that the people who spoke my tongue and thought more or less as
+I thought should be under the foot of the Beast--fevered sentimentality!
+You don't believe that?"
+
+"I believe it."
+
+It was Oliva who spoke, and it appeared that this was the first time
+that Milsom had noticed her presence, for his eyes opened wider.
+
+"You--oh, you believe it, do you?" and he nodded.
+
+"But why is van Heerden waiting?" asked McNorton. "What is he waiting
+for?"
+
+The big man rolled his head helplessly from side to side, and the hard
+cackle of his laughter was very trying to men whose nerves were raw and
+on edge.
+
+"That's the fatal lunacy of it! I think it must be a national
+characteristic. You saw it in the war again and again--a wonderful plan
+brought to naught by some piece of over-cleverness on the part of the
+super-man."
+
+A wild hope leapt to Beale's heart.
+
+"Then it has failed! The rust has not answered----?"
+
+But Milsom shook his head wearily.
+
+"The rust is all that he thinks--and then some," he said. "No, it isn't
+that. It is in the work of organization where the hitch has occurred.
+You know something of the story. Van Heerden has agents in every country
+in the world. He has spent nearly a hundred thousand pounds in
+perfecting his working plans, and I'm willing to admit that they are
+wellnigh perfect. Such slight mistakes as sending men to South Africa
+and Australia where the crops are six months later than the European and
+American harvests may be forgiven, because the German thinks
+longitudinally, and north and south are the two points of the compass
+which he never bothers his head about. If the Germans had been a
+seafaring people they'd have discovered America before Columbus, but
+they would never have found the North Pole or rounded the Cape in a
+million years."
+
+He paused, and they saw the flicker of a smile in his weary eyes.
+
+"The whole scheme is under van Heerden's hand. At the word 'Go'
+thousands of his agents begin their work of destruction--but the word
+must come from him. He has so centralized his scheme that if he died
+suddenly without that word being uttered, the work of years would come
+to naught. I guess he is suspicious of everybody, including his new
+Government. For the best part of a year he has been arranging and
+planning. With the assistance of a girl, a compatriot of his, he has
+reduced all things to order. In every country is a principal agent who
+possesses a copy of a simple code. At the proper moment van Heerden
+would cable a word which meant 'Get busy' or 'Hold off until you hear
+from me,' or 'Abandon scheme for this year and collect cultures.' I
+happen to be word-perfect in the meanings of the code words because van
+Heerden has so often drummed them into me."
+
+"What are the code words?"
+
+"I'm coming to that," nodded Milsom. "Van Heerden is the type of
+scientist that never trusts his memory. You find that kind in all the
+school--they usually spend their time making the most complete and
+detailed notes, and their studies are packed with memoranda. Yet he had
+a wonderful memory for the commonplace things--for example, in the plain
+English of his three messages he was word perfect. He could tell you
+off-hand the names and addresses of all his agents. But when it came to
+scientific data his mind was a blank until he consulted his authorities.
+It seemed that once he made a note his mind was incapable of retaining
+the information he had committed to paper. That, as I say, is a
+phenomenon which is not infrequently met with amongst men of science."
+
+"And he had committed the code to paper?" asked Kitson.
+
+"I am coming to that. After the fire at the Paddington works, van
+Heerden said the time had come to make a get away. He was going to the
+Continent, I was to sail for Canada. 'Before you go,' he said, 'I will
+give you the code--but I am afraid that I cannot do that until after
+ten o'clock.'"
+
+McNorton was scribbling notes in shorthand and carefully circled the
+hour.
+
+"We went back to his flat and had breakfast together--it was then about
+five o'clock. He packed a few things and I particularly noticed that he
+looked very carefully at the interior of a little grip which he had
+brought the previous night from Staines. He was so furtive, carrying the
+bag to the light of the window, that I supposed he was consulting his
+code, and I wondered why he should defer giving me the information until
+ten o'clock. Anyway, I could swear he took something from the bag and
+slipped it into his pocket. We left the flat soon after and drove to a
+railway station where the baggage was left. Van Heerden had given me
+bank-notes for a thousand pounds in case we should be separated, and I
+went on to the house in South London. You needn't ask me where it is
+because van Heerden is not there."
+
+He gulped again at the wine.
+
+"At eleven o'clock van Heerden came back," resumed Milsom, "and if ever
+a man was panic-stricken it was he--the long and the short of it is that
+the code was mislaid."
+
+"Mislaid!" Beale was staggered.
+
+Here was farce interpolated into tragedy--the most grotesque, the most
+unbelievable farce.
+
+"Mislaid," said Milsom. "He did not say as much, but I gathered from the
+few disjointed words he flung at me that the code was not irredeemably
+lost; in fact, I have reason to believe that he knows where it is. It
+was after that that van Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of
+me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained
+all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help
+him in a burglary--and burglary is not my forte."
+
+"What did he want to burgle?" asked McNorton, with professional
+interest.
+
+"Ah! There you have me! It was the question I asked and he refused to
+answer. I was to put myself in his hands and there was to be some
+shooting if, as he thought likely, a caretaker was left on the premises
+to be entered. I told him flat--we were sitting on Wandsworth Common at
+the time--that he could leave me out, and that is where we became
+mutually offensive."
+
+He looked at his maimed hand.
+
+"I dressed it roughly at a chemist's. The iodine open dressing isn't
+beautiful, but it is antiseptic. He shot to kill, too, there's no doubt
+about that. A very perfect little gentleman!"
+
+"He's in London?" said McNorton. "That simplifies matters."
+
+"To my mind it complicates rather than simplifies," said Beale. "London
+is a vast proposition. Can you give us any idea as to the hour the
+burglary was planned for?"
+
+"Eleven," said Milsom promptly, "that is to say, in a little over an
+hour's time."
+
+"And you have no idea of the locality?"
+
+"Somewhere in the East of London. We were to have met at Aldgate."
+
+"I don't understand it," said McNorton. "Do you suggest that the code is
+in the hands of somebody who is not willing to part with it? And now
+that he no longer needs it for you, is there any reason why he should
+wait?"
+
+"Every reason," replied Milsom, and Stanford Beale nodded in agreement.
+"It was not only for me he wanted it. He as good as told me that unless
+he recovered it he would be unable to communicate with his men."
+
+"What do you think he'll do?"
+
+"He'll get Bridgers to assist him. Bridgers is a pretty sore man, and
+the doctor knows just where he can find him."
+
+As Oliva listened an idea slowly dawned in her mind that she might
+supply a solution to the mystery of the missing code. It was a wildly
+improbable theory she held, but even so slender a possibility was not to
+be discarded. She slipped from the group and went back to her room. For
+the accommodation of his ward, James Kitson had taken the adjoining
+suite to his own and had secured a lady's maid from an agency for the
+girl's service. She passed through the sitting-room to her own bedroom,
+and found the maid putting the room ready for the night.
+
+"Minnie," she said, throwing a quick glance about the apartment, "where
+did you put the clothes I took off when I came?"
+
+"Here, miss."
+
+The girl opened the wardrobe and Oliva made a hurried search.
+
+"Did you find--anything, a little ticket?"
+
+The girl smiled.
+
+"Oh yes, miss. It was in your stocking."
+
+Oliva laughed.
+
+"I suppose you thought it was rather queer, finding that sort of thing
+in a girl's stocking," she asked, but the maid was busily opening the
+drawers of the dressing-table in search of something.
+
+"Here it is, miss."
+
+She held a small square ticket in her hand and held it with such
+disapproving primness that Oliva nearly laughed.
+
+"I found it in your stocking, miss," she said again.
+
+"Quite right," said Oliva coolly, "that's where I put it. I always carry
+my pawn tickets in my stocking."
+
+The admirable Minnie sniffed.
+
+"I suppose you have never seen such a thing," smiled Oliva, "and you
+hardly knew what it was."
+
+The lady's maid turned very red. She had unfortunately seen many such
+certificates of penury, but all that was part of her private life, and
+she had been shocked beyond measure to be confronted with this
+too-familiar evidence of impecuniosity in the home of a lady who
+represented to her an assured income and comfortable pickings.
+
+Oliva went back to her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a
+sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which
+arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed
+her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the
+details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand
+stepped into the room.
+
+If they had missed her after she had left nobody saw her return. They
+were sitting in a group about the table, firing questions at the big
+unshaven man who had made such a dramatic entrance to the conference and
+who, with a long cigar in the corner of his mouth, was answering readily
+and fluently.
+
+But faced with the tangible workings of criminal investigation her
+resolution and her theories shrank to vanishing-point. She clasped the
+ticket in her hand and felt for a pocket, but the dressmaker had not
+provided her with that useful appendage.
+
+So she turned and went softly back to her room, praying that she would
+not be noticed. She closed the door gently behind her and turned to meet
+a well-valeted man in evening-dress who was standing in the middle of
+the room, a light overcoat thrown over his arm, his silk hat tilted back
+from his forehead, a picture of calm assurance.
+
+"Don't move," said van Heerden, "and don't scream. And be good enough to
+hand over the pawn ticket you are holding in your hand."
+
+Silently she obeyed, and as she handed the little pasteboard across the
+table which separated them she looked past him to the bookshelf behind
+his head, and particularly to a new volume which bore the name of
+Stanford Beale.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE WATCH
+
+
+"Thanks," said van Heerden, pocketing the ticket, "it is of no use to me
+now, for I cannot wait. I gather that you have not disclosed the fact
+that this ticket is in your possession."
+
+"I don't know how you gather that," she said.
+
+"Lower your voice!" he hissed menacingly. "I gather as much because
+Beale knew the ticket would not be in my possession now. If he only
+knew, if he only had a hint of its existence, I fear my scheme would
+fail. As it is, it will succeed. And now," he said with a smile, "time
+is short and your preparations must be of the briefest. I will save you
+the trouble of asking questions by telling you that I am going to take
+you along with me. I certainly cannot afford to leave you. Get your
+coat."
+
+With a shrug she walked past him to the bedroom and he followed.
+
+"Are we going far?" she asked.
+
+There was no tremor in her voice and she felt remarkably self-possessed.
+
+"That you will discover," said he.
+
+"I am not asking out of idle curiosity, but I want to know whether I
+ought to take a bag."
+
+"Perhaps it would be better," he said.
+
+She carried the little attache case back to the sitting-room.
+
+"You have no objection to my taking a little light reading-matter?" she
+asked contemptuously. "I am afraid you are not a very entertaining
+companion, Dr. van Heerden."
+
+"Excellent girl," said van Heerden cheerfully. "Take anything you like."
+
+She slipped a book from the shelf and nearly betrayed herself by an
+involuntary exclamation as she felt its weight.
+
+"You are not very original in your methods," she said, "this is the
+second time you have spirited me off."
+
+"The gaols of England, as your new-found friend Milsom will tell you,
+are filled with criminals who departed from the beaten tracks," said van
+Heerden. "Walk out into the corridor and turn to the right. I will be
+close behind you. A little way along you will discover a narrow passage
+which leads to the service staircase. Go down that. I am sure you
+believe me when I say that I will kill you if you attempt to make any
+signal or scream or appeal for help."
+
+She did not answer. It was because of this knowledge and this fear,
+which was part of her youthful equipment--for violent death is a very
+terrible prospect to the young and the healthy--that she obeyed him at
+all.
+
+They walked down the stone stairs, through an untidy, low-roofed lobby,
+redolent of cooking food, into the street, without challenge and without
+attracting undue notice.
+
+Van Heerden's car was waiting at the end of the street, and she thought
+she recognized the chauffeur as Bridgers.
+
+"Once more we ride together," said van Heerden gaily, "and what will be
+the end of this adventure for you depends entirely upon your
+loyalty--what are you opening your bag for?" he asked, peering in the
+dark.
+
+"I am looking for a handkerchief," said Oliva. "I am afraid I am going
+to cry!"
+
+He settled himself back in the corner of the car with a sigh of
+resignation, accepting her explanation--sarcasm was wholly wasted on van
+Heerden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said Milsom, "I don't think there's anything more I
+can tell you. What are you going to do with me?"
+
+"I'll take the responsibility of not executing the warrant," said
+McNorton. "You will accompany one of my men to his home to-night and you
+will be under police supervision."
+
+"That's no new experience," said Milsom, "there's only one piece of
+advice I want to give you."
+
+"And that is?" asked Beale.
+
+"Don't underrate van Heerden. You have no conception of his nerve. There
+isn't a man of us here," he said, "whose insurance rate wouldn't go up
+to ninety per cent. if van Heerden decided to get him. I don't profess
+that I can help you to explain his strange conduct to-day. I can only
+outline the psychology of it, but how and where he has hidden his code
+and what circumstances prevent its recovery, is known only to van
+Heerden."
+
+He nodded to the little group, and accompanied by McNorton left the
+room.
+
+"There goes a pretty bad man," said Kitson, "or I am no judge of
+character. He's an old lag, isn't he?"
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"Murder," he said laconically. "He lived after his time. He should have
+been a contemporary of the Borgias."
+
+"A poisoner!" shuddered one of the under-secretaries. "I remember the
+case. He killed his nephew and defended himself on the plea that the
+youth was a degenerate, as he undoubtedly was."
+
+"He might have got that defence past in America or France," said Beale,
+"but unfortunately there was a business end to the matter. He was the
+sole heir of his nephew's considerable fortune, and a jury from the
+Society of Eugenics would have convicted him on that."
+
+He looked at his watch and turned his eyes to Kitson.
+
+"I presume Miss Cresswell is bored and has retired for the night," he
+said.
+
+"I'll find out in a moment," said Kitson. "Did you speak to her?"
+
+Beale nodded, and his eyes twinkled.
+
+"Did you make any progress?"
+
+"I broke the sad news to her, if that's what you mean."
+
+"You told her she was married to you? Good heavens! What did she say?"
+
+"Well, she didn't faint, I don't think she's the fainting kind. She is
+cursed with a sense of humour, and refused even to take a tragic view."
+
+"That's bad," said Kitson, shaking his head. "A sense of humour is out
+of place in a divorce court, and that is where your little romance is
+going to end, my friend."
+
+"I am not so sure," said Beale calmly, and the other stared at him.
+
+"You have promised me," he began, with a note of acerbity in his voice.
+
+"And you have advised me," said Beale.
+
+Kitson choked down something which he was going to say, but which he
+evidently thought was better left unsaid.
+
+"Wait," he commanded, "I will find out whether Miss Cresswell," he
+emphasized the words, "has gone to bed."
+
+He passed through the door to Oliva's sitting-room and was gone a few
+minutes. When he came back Beale saw his troubled face, and ran forward
+to meet him.
+
+"She's not there," said Kitson.
+
+"Not in her room?"
+
+"Neither in the sitting-room nor the bedroom. I have rung for her maid.
+Oh, here you are."
+
+Prim Minnie came through the bedroom door.
+
+"Where is your mistress?"
+
+"I thought she was with you, sir."
+
+"What is this?" said Beale, stooped and picked up a white kid glove.
+"She surely hasn't gone out," he said in consternation.
+
+"That's not a lady's glove, sir," said the girl, "that is a
+gentleman's."
+
+It was a new glove, and turning it over he saw stamped inside the words:
+"Glebler, Rotterdam."
+
+"Has anybody been here?" he asked.
+
+"Not to my knowledge, sir. The young lady told me she did not want me
+any more to-night." The girl hesitated. It seemed a veritable betrayal
+of her mistress to disclose such a sordid matter as the search for a
+pawn ticket.
+
+Beale noticed the hesitation.
+
+"You must tell me everything, and tell me quickly," he said.
+
+"Well, sir," said the maid, "the lady came in to look for something she
+brought with her when she came here."
+
+"I remember!" cried Kitson, "she told me she had brought away something
+very curious from van Heerden's house and made me guess what it was.
+Something interrupted our talk--what was it?"
+
+"Well, sir," said the maid, resigned, "I won't tell you a lie, sir. It
+was a pawn ticket."
+
+"A pawn ticket!" cried Kitson and Beale in unison.
+
+"Are you sure?" asked the latter.
+
+"Absolutely sure, sir."
+
+"But she couldn't have brought a pawn ticket from van Heerden's house.
+What was it for?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir."
+
+"What was on the pawn ticket?" said Kitson impatiently. "What article
+had been pledged?"
+
+Again the girl hesitated. To betray her mistress was unpleasant. To
+betray herself--as she would if she confessed that she had most
+carefully and thoroughly read the voucher--was unthinkable.
+
+"You know what was on it," said Beale, in his best third degree manner,
+"now don't keep us waiting. What was it?"
+
+"A watch, sir."
+
+"How much was it pledged for?"
+
+"Ten shillings, sir."
+
+"Do you remember the name."
+
+"In a foreign name, sir--van Horden."
+
+"Van Heerden," said Beale quickly, "and at what pawnbrokers?"
+
+"Well, sir," said the girl, making a fight for her reputation, "I only
+glanced at the ticket and I only noticed----"
+
+"Yes, you did," interrupted Beale sharply, "you read every line of it.
+Where was it?"
+
+"Rosenblaum Bros., of Commercial Road," blurted the girl.
+
+"Any number?"
+
+"I didn't see the number."
+
+"You will find them in the telephone book," said Kitson. "What does it
+mean?"
+
+But Beale was half-way to Kitson's sitting-room, arriving there in time
+to meet McNorton who had handed over his charge to his subordinate.
+
+"I've found it!" cried Beale.
+
+"Found what?" asked Kitson.
+
+"The code!"
+
+"Where? How?" asked McNorton.
+
+"Unless I am altogether wrong the code is contained, either engraved on
+the case or written on a slip of paper enclosed within the case of a
+watch. Can't you see it all plainly now? Van Heerden neither trusted his
+memory nor his subordinates. He had his simple code written, as we shall
+find, upon thin paper enclosed in the case of a hunter watch, and this
+he pledged. A pawnbroker's is the safest of safe deposits. Searching for
+clues, suppose the police had detected his preparations, the pledged
+ticket might have been easily overlooked."
+
+Kitson was looking at him with an expression of amazed indignation.
+Here was a man who had lost his wife, and Kitson believed that this
+young detective loved the girl as few women are loved; but in the
+passion of the chase, in the production of a new problem, he was
+absorbed to the exclusion of all other considerations in the greater
+game.
+
+Yet he did Beale an injustice if he only knew, for the thought of
+Oliva's new peril ran through all his speculations, his rapid
+deductions, his lightning plans.
+
+"Miss Cresswell found the ticket and probably extracted it as a
+curiosity. These things are kept in little envelopes, aren't they,
+McNorton?"
+
+The police chief nodded.
+
+"That was it, then. She took it out and left the envelope behind, and
+van Heerden did not discover his loss until he went to find the voucher
+to give Milsom the code. Don't you remember? In the first place he said
+he couldn't give him the code until after ten o'clock, which is probably
+the hour the pawnbrokers open for business."
+
+McNorton nodded again.
+
+"Then do you remember that Milsom said that the code was not
+irredeemably lost and that van Heerden knew where it was. In default of
+finding the ticket he decided to burgle the pawnbroker's, and that
+burglary is going through to-night."
+
+"But he could have obtained a duplicate of the ticket," said McNorton.
+
+"How?" asked Beale quickly.
+
+"By going before a magistrate and swearing an affidavit."
+
+"In his own name," said Beale, "you see, he couldn't do that. It would
+mean walking into the lion's den. No, burglary was his only chance."
+
+"But what of Oliva?" said Kitson impatiently, "I tell you, Beale, I am
+not big enough or stoical enough to think outside of that girl's
+safety."
+
+Beale swung round at him.
+
+"You don't think I've forgotten that, do you?" he said in a low voice.
+"You don't think that has been out of my mind?" His face was tense and
+drawn. "I think, I believe that Oliva is safe," he said quietly. "I
+believe that Oliva and not any of us here will deliver van Heerden to
+justice."
+
+"Are you mad?" asked Kitson in astonishment.
+
+"I am very sane. Come here!"
+
+He gripped the old lawyer by the arm and led him back to the girl's
+room.
+
+"Look," he said, and pointed.
+
+"What do you mean, the bookshelf?"
+
+Beale nodded.
+
+"Half an hour ago I gave Oliva a book," he said, "that book is no longer
+there."
+
+"But in the name of Heaven how can a book save her?" demanded the
+exasperated Kitson.
+
+Stanford Beale did not answer.
+
+"Yes, yes, she's safe. I know she's safe," he said. "If Oliva is the
+girl I think she is then I see van Heerden's finish."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+A CORN CHANDLER'S BILL
+
+
+The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a
+gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling,
+and Beale and McNorton alighted.
+
+It was a main street and was almost deserted. Beale looked up at the
+windows. They were dark. He knocked at the side-entrance of the shop,
+and presently the two men were joined by a policeman.
+
+"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made
+himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at
+Highgate."
+
+He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A
+nightfarer who had been in the shade on the opposite side of the street
+came across and volunteered information.
+
+He had seen another car drive up and a gentleman had alighted. He had
+opened the door with a key and gone in. There was nothing suspicious
+about him. He was "quite a gentleman, and was in evening-dress." The
+constable thought it was one of the partners of Rosenblaum in convivial
+and resplendent garb. He had been in the house ten minutes then had come
+out again, locking the door behind him, and had driven off just before
+Beale's car had arrived.
+
+It was not until half an hour later that an agitated little man brought
+by the police from Highgate admitted the two men.
+
+There was no need to make a long search. The moment the light was
+switched on in the shop Beale made his discovery. On the broad counter
+lay a sheet of paper and a little heap of silver coins. He swept the
+money aside and read:
+
+"For the redemption of one silver hunter, 10s. 6d."
+
+It was signed in the characteristic handwriting that Beale knew so well
+"Van Heerden, M.D."
+
+The two men looked at one another.
+
+"What do you make of that?" asked McNorton.
+
+Beale carried the paper to the light and examined it, and McNorton went
+on:
+
+"He's a pretty cool fellow. I suppose he had the money and the message
+all ready for our benefit."
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"On the contrary," he said, "this was done on the spur of the moment. A
+piece of bravado which occurred to him when he had the watch. Look at
+this paper. You can imagine him searching his pocket for a piece of
+waste paper and taking the first that came to his hand. It is written in
+ink with the pawnbroker's own pen. The inkwell is open," he lifted up
+the pen, "the nib is still wet," he said.
+
+McNorton took the paper from his hands.
+
+It was a bill from a corn-chandler's at Horsham, the type of bill that
+was sent in days of war economy which folded over and constituted its
+own envelope. It was addressed to "J. B. Harden, Esq." ("That was the
+_alias_ he used when he took the wine vaults at Paddington," explained
+McNorton) and had been posted about a week before. Attached to the
+bottom of the account, which was for L3 10s., was a little slip calling
+attention to the fact that "this account had probably been overlooked."
+
+Beale's finger traced the item for which the bill was rendered, and
+McNorton uttered an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Curious, isn't it?" said Beale, as he folded the paper and put it away
+in his pocket, "how these very clever men always make some trifling
+error which brings them to justice. I don't know how many great schemes
+I have seen brought to nothing through some such act of folly as this,
+some piece of theatrical bravado which benefited the criminal nothing at
+all."
+
+"Good gracious," said McNorton wonderingly, "of course, that's what he
+is going to do. I never thought of that. It is in the neighbourhood of
+Horsham we must look for him, and I think if we can get one of the
+Messrs. Billingham out of bed in a couple of hours' time we shall do a
+good night's work."
+
+They went outside and again questioned the policeman. He remembered the
+car turning round and going back the way it had come. It had probably
+taken one of the innumerable side-roads which lead from the main
+thoroughfare, and in this way they had missed it.
+
+"I want to go to the '_Megaphone_' office first," said Beale. "I have
+some good friends on that paper and I am curious to know how bad the
+markets are. The night cables from New York should be coming in by now."
+
+In his heart was a sickening fear which he dared not express. What would
+the morrow bring forth? If this one man's cupidity and hate should
+succeed in releasing the terror upon the world, what sort of a world
+would it leave? Through the windows of the car he could see the placid
+policemen patrolling the streets, caught a glimpse of other cars
+brilliantly illuminated bearing their laughing men and women back to
+homes, who were ignorant of the monstrous danger which threatened their
+security and life.
+
+He passed the facades of great commercial mansions which in a month's
+time might but serve to conceal the stark ruin within.
+
+To him it was a night of tremendous tragedy, and for the second time in
+his life in the numbness induced by the greater peril and the greater
+anxiety he failed to wince at the thought of the danger in which Oliva
+stood.
+
+Indeed, analysing his sensations she seemed to him on this occasion less
+a victim than a fellow-worker and he found a strange comfort in that
+thought of partnership.
+
+The _Megaphone_ buildings blazed with light when the car drew up to the
+door, messenger-boys were hurrying through the swing-doors, the two
+great elevators were running up and down without pause. The grey editor
+with a gruff voice threw over a bundle of flimsies.
+
+"Here are the market reports," he growled, "they are not very
+encouraging."
+
+Beale read them and whistled, and the editor eyed him keenly.
+
+"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked the detective. "Wheat at a
+shilling a pound already. God knows what it's going to be to-morrow!"
+
+"Any other news?" asked Beale.
+
+"We have asked Germany to explain why she has prohibited the export of
+wheat and to give us a reason for the stocks she holds and the steps she
+has taken during the past two months to accumulate reserves."
+
+"An ultimatum?"
+
+"Not exactly an ultimatum. There's nothing to go to war about. The
+Government has mobilized the fleet and the French Government has
+partially mobilized her army. The question is," he said, "would war ease
+the situation?"
+
+Beale shook his head.
+
+"The battle will not be fought in the field," he said, "it will be
+fought right here in London, in all your great towns, in Manchester,
+Coventry, Birmingham, Cardiff. It will be fought in New York and in a
+thousand townships between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and if the
+German scheme comes off we shall be beaten before a shot is fired."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked the editor, "why is everybody buying wheat
+so frantically? There is no shortage. The harvests in the United States
+and Canada are good."
+
+"There will be no harvests," said Beale solemnly; and the journalist
+gaped at him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE END OF VAN HEERDEN
+
+
+Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies
+beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared
+to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleasant travelling-companion. When a man
+takes a girl, against her will, from a pleasant suite at the best hotel
+in London, compels her at the peril of death to accompany him on a
+motor-car ride in the dead of the night, and when his offence is a
+duplication of one which had been committed less than a week before, he
+not unnaturally anticipates tears, supplications, or in the alternative
+a frigid and unapproachable silence.
+
+To his amazement Oliva was extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and
+even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he
+investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros.,
+and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had
+been taciturn and uncommunicative was in quite an amiable mood.
+
+"I used to think," she said, "that motor-car abductions were the
+invention of sensational writers, but you seem to make a practice of it.
+You are not very original, Dr. van Heerden. I think I've told you that
+before."
+
+He smiled in the darkness as the car sped smoothly through the deserted
+streets.
+
+"I must plead guilty to being rather unoriginal," he said, "but I
+promise you that this little adventure shall not end as did the last."
+
+"It can hardly do that," she laughed, "I can only be married once
+whilst Mr. Beale is alive."
+
+"I forgot you were married," he said suddenly, then after a pause, "I
+suppose you will divorce him?"
+
+"Why?" she asked innocently.
+
+"But you're not fond of that fellow, are you?"
+
+"Passionately," she said calmly, "he is my ideal."
+
+The reply took away his breath and certainly silenced him.
+
+"How is this adventure to end?" she demanded. "Are you going to maroon
+me on a desert island, or are you taking me to Germany?"
+
+"How did you know I am trying to get to Germany?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Beale thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he
+reckoned that he would catch you somewhere near the coast."
+
+"He did, did he?" said the other calmly. "I shall deny him that
+pleasure. I don't intend taking you to Germany. Indeed, it is not my
+intention to detain you any longer than is necessary."
+
+"For which I am truly grateful," she smiled, "but why detain me at all?"
+
+"That is a stupid question to ask when I am sure you have no doubt in
+your mind as to why it is necessary to keep you close to me until I have
+finished my work. I think I told you some time ago," he went on, "that I
+had a great scheme. The other day you called me a Hun, by which I
+suppose you meant that I was a German. It is perfectly true that I am a
+German and I am a patriotic German. To me even in these days of his
+degradation the Kaiser is still little less than a god."
+
+His voice quivered a little, and the girl was struck dumb with wonder
+that a man of such intelligence, of such a wide outlook, of such
+modernity, should hold to views so archaic.
+
+"Your country ruined Germany. You have sucked us dry. To say that I hate
+England and hate America--for you Anglo-Saxons are one in your soulless
+covetousness--is to express my feelings mildly."
+
+"But what is your scheme?" she asked.
+
+"Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that
+to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics.
+America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my
+country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he
+cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the
+Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."
+
+"But how?" she asked, bewildered.
+
+"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is
+stored in Germany."
+
+"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about
+harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's
+wheat comes from America and from Russia."
+
+"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the
+American wheat--there will be no American wheat."
+
+And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst
+out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English.
+The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating
+hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette
+against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled
+incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best
+she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work
+in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names
+of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.
+
+So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to
+counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to
+her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he
+carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she
+cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:
+
+"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"
+
+"What--what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you
+thanking God about?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing." She was her eager, animated self. "Tell me some
+more. It is a wonderful story. It is true, is it not?"
+
+"True?" he laughed harshly, "you shall see how true it is. You shall see
+the world lie at the feet of German science. To-morrow the word will go
+forth. Look!" He clicked on a little electric light and held out his
+hand. In his palm lay a silver watch.
+
+"I told you there was a code" (she was dimly conscious that he had
+spoken of a code but she had been so occupied by her own thoughts that
+she had not caught all that he had said). "That code was in this watch.
+Look!"
+
+He pressed a knob and the case flew open. Pasted to the inside of the
+case was a circular piece of paper covered with fine writing.
+
+"When you found that ticket you had the code in your hands," he
+chuckled; "if you or your friends had the sense to redeem that watch I
+could not have sent to-morrow the message of German liberation! See, it
+is very simple!" He pointed with his finger and held the watch half-way
+to the roof that the light might better reveal the wording. "This word
+means 'Proceed.' It will go to all my chief agents. They will transmit
+it by telegram to hundreds of centres. By Thursday morning great
+stretches of territory where the golden corn was waving so proudly
+to-day will be blackened wastes. By Saturday the world will confront its
+sublime catastrophe."
+
+"But why have you three words?" she asked huskily.
+
+"We Germans provide against all contingencies," he said, "we leave
+nothing to chance. We are not gamblers. We work on lines of scientific
+accuracy. The second word is to tell my agents to suspend operations
+until they hear from me. The third word means 'Abandon the scheme for
+this year'! We must work with the markets. A more favourable opportunity
+might occur--with so grand a conception it is necessary that we should
+obtain the maximum results for our labours."
+
+He snapped the case of the watch and put it back in his pocket, turned
+out the light and settled himself back with a sigh of content.
+
+"You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and
+to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an
+ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile
+mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my
+fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my
+intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless----" A
+thought struck him, and he frowned.
+
+"Unless----?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her
+assurance.
+
+"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to
+the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful
+fellow----"
+
+"You wouldn't?" she gasped.
+
+"Why not?" he said coolly. "I don't want you. Bridgers thinks that you
+are beautiful."
+
+"Is he a Hun, too?" she asked, and he jerked round toward her.
+
+"If Bridgers wants you he shall have you," he said harshly.
+
+She knew she had made a mistake. There was no sense in antagonizing him,
+the more especially so since she had not yet learnt all that she wanted
+to know.
+
+"I think your scheme is horrible," she said after awhile, "the wheat
+destruction scheme, I mean, not Bridgers. But it is a very great one."
+
+The man was susceptible to flattery, for he became genial again.
+
+"It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is
+the most colossal crime--I suppose they will call it a crime--that has
+ever been committed."
+
+"But how are you going to get your code word away? The telegraphs are in
+the hands of the Government and I think you will find it difficult even
+if you have a secret wireless."
+
+"Wireless, bah!" he said scornfully. "I never expected to send it by
+telegraph with or without wires. I have a much surer way, fraeulein, as
+you will see."
+
+"But how will you escape?" she asked.
+
+"I shall leave England to-morrow, soon after daybreak," he replied,
+with assurance, "by aeroplane, a long-distance flying-machine will land
+on my Sussex farm which will have British markings--indeed, it is
+already in England, and I and my good Bridgers will pass your coast
+without trouble."
+
+He peered out of the window.
+
+"This is Horsham, I think," he said, as they swept through what appeared
+to the girl to be a square. "That little building on the left is the
+railway station. You will see the signal lamps in a moment. My farm is
+about five miles down the Shoreham Road."
+
+He was in an excellent temper as they passed through the old town and
+mounted the hill which leads to Shoreham, was politeness itself when the
+car had turned off the main road and had bumped over cart tracks to the
+door of a large building.
+
+"This is your last escapade, Miss Cresswell, or Mrs. Beale I suppose I
+should call you," he said jovially, as he pushed her before him into a
+room where supper had been laid for two. "You see, you were not
+expected, but you shall have Bridgers'. It will be daylight in two
+hours," he said inconsequently, "you must have some wine."
+
+She shook her head with a smile, and he laughed as if the implied
+suspicion of her refusal was the best joke in the world.
+
+"Nein, nein, little friend," he said, "I shall not doctor you again. My
+days of doctoring have passed."
+
+She had expected to find the farm in occupation, but apparently they
+were the only people there. The doctor had opened the door himself with
+a key, and no servant had appeared, nor apparently did he expect them to
+appear. She learnt afterwards that there were two farm servants, an old
+man and his wife, who lived in a cottage on the estate and came in the
+daytime to do the housework and prepare a cold supper against their
+master's coming.
+
+Bridgers did not make his appearance. Apparently he was staying with his
+car. About three o'clock in the morning, when the first streaks of grey
+were showing in the sky, van Heerden rose to go in search of his
+assistant. Until then he had not ceased to talk of himself, of his
+scheme, of his great plan, of his early struggles, of his difficulties
+in persuading members of his Government to afford him the assistance he
+required. As he turned to the door she checked him with a word:
+
+"I am immensely interested," she said, "but still, you have not told me
+how you intend to send your message."
+
+"It is simple," he said, and beckoned to her.
+
+They passed out of the house into the chill sweet dawn, made a
+half-circuit of the farm and came to a courtyard surrounded on three
+sides by low buildings. He opened a door to reveal another door covered
+with wire netting.
+
+"Behold!" he laughed.
+
+"Pigeons!" said the girl.
+
+The dark interior of the shed was aflicker with white wings.
+
+"Pigeons!" repeated van Heerden, closing the door, "and every one knows
+his way back to Germany. It has been a labour of love collecting them.
+And they are all British," he said with a laugh. "There I will give the
+British credit, they know more about pigeons than we Germans and have
+used them more in the war."
+
+"But suppose your pigeon is shot down or falls by the way?" she asked,
+as they walked slowly back to the house.
+
+"I shall send fifty," replied van Heerden calmly; "each will carry the
+same message and some at least will get home."
+
+Back in the dining-room he cleared the remains of the supper from the
+table and went out of the room for a few minutes, returning with a small
+pad of paper, and she saw from the delicacy with which he handed each
+sheet that it was of the thinnest texture. Between each page he placed a
+carbon and began to write, printing the characters. There was only one
+word on each tiny sheet. When this was written he detached the leaves,
+putting them aside and using his watch as a paper-weight, and wrote
+another batch.
+
+She watched him, fascinated, until he showed signs that he had
+completed his task. Then she lifted the little valise which she had at
+her side, put it on her knees, opened it and took out a book. It must
+have been instinct which made him raise his eyes to her.
+
+"What have you got there?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Oh, a book," she said, with an attempt at carelessness.
+
+"But why have you got it out? You are not reading."
+
+He leant over and snatched it from her and looked at the title.
+
+"'A Friend in Need,'" he read. "By Stanford Beale--by Stanford Beale,"
+he repeated, frowning. "I didn't know your husband wrote books?"
+
+She made no reply. He turned back the cover and read the title page.
+
+"But this is 'Smiles's Self Help,'" he said.
+
+"It's the same thing," she replied.
+
+He turned another page or two, then stopped, for he had come to a place
+where the centre of the book had been cut right out. The leaves had been
+glued together to disguise this fact, and what was apparently a book was
+in reality a small box.
+
+"What was in there?" he asked, springing to his feet.
+
+"This," she said, "don't move, Dr. van Heerden!"
+
+The little hand which held the Browning was firm and did not quiver.
+
+"I don't think you are going to send your pigeons off this morning,
+doctor," she said. "Stand back from the table." She leant over and
+seized the little heap of papers and the watch. "I am going to shoot
+you," she said steadily, "if you refuse to do as I tell you; because if
+I don't shoot you, you will kill me."
+
+His face had grown old and grey in the space of a few seconds. The white
+hands he raised were shaking. He tried to speak but only a hoarse murmur
+came. Then his face went blank. He stared at the pistol, then stretched
+out his hands slowly toward it.
+
+"Stand back!" she cried.
+
+He jumped at her, and she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, and
+the next minute she was struggling in his arms. The man was hysterical
+with fear and relief and was giggling and cursing in the same breath.
+He wrenched the pistol from her hand and threw it on the table.
+
+"You fool! You fool!" he shouted, "the safety-catch! You didn't put it
+down!"
+
+She could have wept with anger and mortification. Beale had put the
+catch of the weapon at safety, not realizing that she did not understand
+the mechanism of it, and van Heerden in one lightning glance had seen
+his advantage.
+
+"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall
+suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your
+husband something which he will not touch!"
+
+He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed
+"Bridgers!"
+
+Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.
+
+"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It
+is----"
+
+"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"
+
+He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these
+was Beale.
+
+"It's no use your shouting for Bridgers because Bridgers is on the way
+to the jug," said McNorton. "I have a warrant for you, van Heerden."
+
+The doctor turned with a howl of rage, snatched up the pistol which lay
+on the table, and thumbed down the safety-catch.
+
+Beale and McNorton fired together, so that it seemed like a single shot
+that thundered through the room. Van Heerden slid forward, and fell
+sprawling across the table.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the Friday morning, and Beale stepped briskly through the
+vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton, and declining the elevator went up the
+stairs two at a time. He burst into the room where Kitson and the girl
+were standing by the window.
+
+"Wheat prices are tumbling down," he said, "the message worked."
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!" said Kitson. "Then van Heerden's code message
+telling his gang to stop operations reached its destination!"
+
+"Its destinations," corrected Beale cheerfully. "I released thirty
+pigeons with the magic word. The agents have been arrested," he said;
+"we notified the Government authorities, and there was a sheriff or a
+policeman in every post office when the code word came through--van
+Heerden's agents saw some curious telegraph messengers yesterday."
+
+Kitson nodded and turned away.
+
+"What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, with a light in her
+eyes. "You must feel quite lost without this great quest of yours."
+
+"There are others," said Stanford Beale.
+
+"When do you return to America?" she asked.
+
+He fenced the question, but she brought him back to it.
+
+"I have a great deal of business to do in London before I go," he said.
+
+"Like what?" she asked.
+
+"Well," he hesitated, "I have some legal business."
+
+"Are you suing somebody?" she asked, wilfully dense.
+
+He rubbed his head in perplexity.
+
+"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't exactly know what I've got to
+do or what sort of figure I shall cut. I have never been in the Divorce
+Court before."
+
+"Divorce Court?" she said, puzzled, "are you giving evidence? Of course
+I know detectives do that sort of thing. I have read about it in the
+newspapers. It must be rather horrid, but you are such a clever
+detective--oh, by the way you never told me how you found me."
+
+"It was a very simple matter," he said, relieved to change the subject,
+"van Heerden, by one of those curious lapses which the best of criminals
+make, left a message at the pawnbroker's which was written on the back
+of an account for pigeon food, sent to him from a Horsham tradesman. I
+knew he would not try to dispatch his message by the ordinary courses
+and I suspected all along that he had established a pigeon-post. The
+bill gave me all the information I wanted. It took us a long time to
+find the tradesman, but once we had discovered him he directed us to the
+farm. We took along a couple of local policemen and arrested Bridgers in
+the garage."
+
+She shivered.
+
+"It was horrible, wasn't it?" she said.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"It was rather dreadful, but it might have been very much worse," he
+added philosophically.
+
+"But how wonderful of you to switch yourself from the crime of that
+enthralling character to a commonplace divorce suit."
+
+"This isn't commonplace," he said, "it is rather a curious story."
+
+"Do tell me." She made a place for him on the window-ledge and he sat
+down beside her.
+
+"It is a story of a mistake and a blunder," he said. "The plaintiff, a
+very worthy young man, passably good looking, was a man of my
+profession, a detective engaged in protecting the interests of a young
+and beautiful girl."
+
+"I suppose you have to say she's young and beautiful or the story
+wouldn't be interesting," she said.
+
+"It is not necessary to lie in this case," he said, "she is certainly
+young and undoubtedly beautiful. She has the loveliest eyes----"
+
+"Go on," she said hastily.
+
+"The detective," he resumed, "hereinafter called the petitioner,
+desiring to protect the innocent maiden from the machinations of a
+fortune-hunting gentleman no longer with us, contracted as he thought a
+fraudulent marriage with this unfortunate girl, believing thereby he
+could choke off the villain who was pursuing her."
+
+"But why did the unfortunate girl marry him, even fraudulently?"
+
+"Because," said Beale, "the villain of the piece had drugged her and she
+didn't know what she was doing. After the marriage," he went on, "he
+discovered that so far from being illegal it was good in law and he had
+bound this wretched female."
+
+"Please don't be rude," she said.
+
+"He had bound this wretched female to him for life. Being a perfect
+gentleman, born of poor but American parents, he takes the first
+opportunity of freeing her."
+
+"And himself," she murmured.
+
+"As to the poor misguided lad," he said firmly, "you need feel no
+sympathy. He had behaved disgracefully."
+
+"How?" she asked.
+
+"Well, you see, he had already fallen in love with her and that made his
+offence all the greater. If you go red I cannot tell you this story,
+because it embarrasses me."
+
+"I haven't gone red," she denied indignantly. "So what are you--what is
+he going to do?"
+
+Beale shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He is going to work for a divorce."
+
+"But why?" she demanded. "What has she done?"
+
+He looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"What do you mean?" he stammered.
+
+"Well"--she shrugged her shoulders slightly and smiled in his face--"it
+seems to me that it is nothing to do with him. It is the wretched female
+who should sue for a divorce, not the handsome detective--do you feel
+faint?"
+
+"No," he said hoarsely.
+
+"Don't you agree with me?"
+
+"I agree with you," said the incoherent Beale. "But suppose her guardian
+takes the necessary steps?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"The guardian can do nothing unless the wretched female instructs him,"
+she said. "Does it occur to you that even the best of drugs wear off in
+time and that there is a possibility that the lady was not as
+unconscious of the ceremony as she pretends? Of course," she said
+hurriedly, "she did not realize that it had actually happened, and until
+she was told by Apollo from the Central Office--that's what you call
+Scotland Yard in New York, isn't it?--that the ceremony had actually
+occurred she was under the impression that it was a beautiful
+dream--when I say beautiful," she amended, in some hurry, "I mean not
+unpleasant."
+
+"Then what am I to do?" said the helpless Beale.
+
+"Wait till I divorce you," said Oliva, and turned her head hurriedly, so
+that Beale only kissed the tip of her ear.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Rust, by Edgar Wallace
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