"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 fall 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."