He took up his hat and went out.

"It is going to be a difficult business to convict van Heerden," said the superintendent when his chief had gone, "you see, in the English courts, motive must be proved to convict before a jury, and there seems no motive except revenge. A jury would take a lot of convincing that a man spent thousands of pounds to avenge a wrong done to his country."

Beale had no answer to this. At the back of his mind he had a dim idea of the sheer money value of the scheme, but he needed other evidence than he possessed. The commissioner returned soon after.

"I have been on the 'phone to the Under-Secretary, and we will take action against van Heerden on the evidence the factory offers. I'll put you in charge of the case, McNorton, you have the search-warrant already? Good!"

He shook hands with Beale.

"You will make a European name over this, Mr. Beale," he said.

"I hope Europe will have nothing more to talk about," said Beale.

They passed back to McNorton's office.

"I'll come right along," said the superintendent. He was taking his hat from a peg when he saw a closed envelope lying on his desk.

"From the local police station," he said. "How long has this been here?"

His clerk shook his head.

"I can't tell you, sir—it has been there since I came in."

"H'm—I must have overlooked it. Perhaps it is news from your factory."

He tore it open, scanned the contents and swore.

"There goes your evidence, Beale," he said.

"What is it?" asked Beale quickly.

"The factory was burned to the ground in the early hours of the morning," he said. "The fire started in the old wine vault and the whole building has collapsed."

The detective stared out of the window.

"Can we arrest van Heerden on the evidence of Professor Heyler?"

For answer McNorton handed him the letter. It ran:

"From Inspector-in-charge, S. Paddington, to Supt. McNorton. Factory in Playbury St. under P.O. (Police Observation) completely destroyed by fire, which broke out in basement at 5.20 this morning. One body found, believed to be a man named Heyler."



CHAPTER XXVII

A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD

There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of pillows, gives to the golden sunlight which filters through a billion panes the very hues and character of jaundice. It is the menace of factory and workshop, harsh prisons which shut men and women from the green fields and the pleasant by-ways; the menace of new responsibilities to be faced and new difficulties to be overcome. Into the space of Monday morning drain the dregs of last week's commitments to gather into stagnant pools upon the desks and benches of toiling and scheming humanity. It is the end of the holiday, the foot of the new hill whose crest is Saturday night and whose most pleasant outlook is the Sunday to come.

Men go to their work reluctant and resentful and reach out for the support which the lunch-hour brings. One o'clock in London is about six o'clock in Chicago. Therefore the significance of shoals of cablegrams which lay on the desks of certain brokers was not wholly apparent until late in the evening, and was not thoroughly understood until late on Tuesday morning, when to other and greater shoals of cables came the terse price-lists from the Board of Trade in Chicago, and on top of all the wirelessed Press accounts for the sensational jump in wheat.

"Wheat soaring," said one headline. "Frantic scenes in the Pit," said another. "Wheat reaches famine price," blared a third.

Beale passing through to Whitehall heard the shrill call of the newsboys and caught the word "wheat." He snatched a paper from the hands of a boy and read.

Every corn-market in the Northern Hemisphere was in a condition of chaos. Prices were jumping to a figure beyond any which the most stringent days of the war had produced.

He slipped into a telephone booth, gave a Treasury number and McNorton answered.

"Have you seen the papers?" he asked.

"No, but I've heard. You mean about the wheat boom?"

"Yes—the game has started."

"Where are you—wait for me, I'll join you."

Three minutes later McNorton appeared from the Whitehall end of Scotland Yard. Beale hailed a cab and they drove to the hotel together.

"Warrants have been issued for van Heerden and Milsom and the girl Glaum," he said. "I expect we shall find the nest empty, but I have sent men to all the railway stations—do you think we've moved too late?"

"Everything depends on the system that van Heerden has adopted," replied Beale, "he is the sort of man who would keep everything in his own hands. If he has done that, and we catch him, we may prevent a world catastrophe."

At the hotel they found Kitson waiting in the vestibule.

"Well?" he asked, "I gather that you've lost van Heerden, but if the newspapers mean anything, his hand is down on the table. Everybody is crazy here," he said, as he led the way to the elevator, "I've just been speaking to the Under-Minister for Agriculture—all Europe is scared. Now what is the story?" he asked, when they were in his room.

He listened attentively and did not interrupt until Stanford Beale had finished.

"That's big enough," he said. "I owe you an apology—much as I was interested in Miss Cresswell, I realize that her fate was as nothing beside the greater issue."

"What does it mean?" asked McNorton.

"The Wheat Panic? God knows. It may mean bread at a guinea a pound—it is too early to judge."

The door was opened unceremoniously and a man strode in. McNorton was the first to recognize the intruder and rose to his feet.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you," said Lord Sevington—it was the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain himself. "Well, Beale, the fantastic story you told me seems in a fair way to being realized."

"This is Mr. Kitson," introduced Stanford, and the grey-haired statesman bowed.

"I sent for you, but decided I couldn't wait—so I came myself. Ah, McNorton, what are the chances of catching van Heerden?"

"No man has ever escaped from this country once his identity was established," said the police chief hopefully.

"If we had taken Beale's advice we should have the gentleman under lock and key," said the Foreign Minister, shaking his head. "You probably know that Mr. Beale has been in communication with the Foreign Office for some time?" he said, addressing Kitson.

"I did not know," admitted the lawyer.

"We thought it was one of those brilliant stories which the American newspaper reporter loves," smiled the minister.

"I don't quite get the commercial end of it," said Kitson. "How does van Heerden benefit by destroying the crops of the world?"

"He doesn't benefit, because the crops won't be destroyed," said the minister. "The South Russian crops are all right, the German crops are intact—but are practically all mortgaged to the German Government."

"The Government?"

"This morning the German Government have made two announcements. The first is the commandeering of all the standing crops, and at the same time the taking over of all options on the sale of wheat. Great granaries are being established all over Germany. The old Zeppelin sheds——"

"Great heavens!" cried Kitson, and stared at Stanford Beale. "That was the reason they took over the sheds?"

"A pretty good reason, too," said Beale, "storage is everything in a crisis like this. What is the second announcement, sir?"

"They prohibit the export of grain," said Lord Sevington, "the whole of Germany is to be rationed for a year, bread is to be supplied by the Government free of all cost to the people; in this way Germany handles the surpluses for us to buy."

"What will she charge?"

"What she wishes. If van Heerden's scheme goes through, if throughout the world the crops are destroyed and only that which lies under Germany's hand is spared, what must we pay? Every penny we have taken from Germany; every cent of her war costs must be returned to her in exchange for wheat."

"Impossible!"

"Why impossible? There is no limit to the price of rarities. What is rarer than gold is more costly than gold. You who are in the room are the only people in the world who know the secret of the Green Rust, and I can speak frankly to you. I tell you that we must either buy from Germany or make war on Germany, and the latter course is impossible, and if it were possible would give us no certainty of relief. We shall have to pay, Britain, France, America, Italy—we shall have to pay. We shall pay in gold, we may have to pay in battleships and material. Our stocks of corn have been allowed to fall and to-day we have less than a month's supply in England. Every producing country in the world will stop exporting instantly, and they, too, with the harvest nearly due, will be near the end of their stocks. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, in your judgment, is it possible to save the crops by local action?"

Beale shook his head.

"I doubt it," he said; "it would mean the mobilisation of millions of men, the surrounding of all corn-tracts—and even then I doubt if your protection would be efficacious. You could send the stuff into the fields by a hundred methods. The only thing to do is to catch van Heerden and stifle the scheme at its fountain-head."

The Chief of the Foreign Ministry strode up and down the room, his hands thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.

"It means our holding out for twelve months," he said. "Can we do it?"

"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.

Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.

"More than that? What do you mean?"

"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be infected for ten years."

The four men looked at one another helplessly.

"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very end of civilization!"

Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.

Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.

Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.

McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill high-pitched whine of a newsboy.

Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare headlines than a newspaper sensation.

To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.

"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I had on August 1, 1914—that sensation of unreality."

His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into which he had fallen, and he started.

"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to act—Mr. McNorton, you will go back to Scotland Yard and ask the Chief Commissioner to attend at the office of the Privy Seal. Mr. Beale will keep in touch with me all the time."

Without any formal leave-taking he made his exit, followed by Superintendent McNorton.

"That's a badly rattled man," said Kitson shrewdly, "the Government may fall on this news. What will you do?"

"Get van Heerden," said the other.

"It is the job of your life," said Kitson quietly, and Beale knew within a quarter of an hour that the lawyer did not exaggerate.

Van Heerden had disappeared with dramatic suddenness. Detectives who visited his flat discovered that his personal belongings had been removed in the early hours of the morning. He had left with two trunks (which were afterwards found in a cloak-room of a London railway terminus) and a companion who was identified as Milsom. Whether the car had gone east or north, south or west, nobody knew.

In the early editions of the evening newspapers, side by side with the account of the panic scenes on 'Change was the notice:

"The Air Ministry announce the suspension of Order 63 of Trans-Marine Flight Regulations. No aeroplane will be allowed to cross the coastline by day or night without first descending at a coast control station. Aerial patrols have orders to force down any machine which does not obey the 'Descend' signal. This signal is now displayed at all coast stations."

Every railway station in England, every port of embarkation, were watched by police. The one photograph of van Heerden in existence, thousands of copies of an excellent snapshot taken by one of Beale's assistants, were distributed by aeroplane to every district centre. At two o'clock Hilda Glaum was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street. She showed neither surprise nor resentment and offered no information as to van Heerden's whereabouts.

Throughout the afternoon there were the usual crops of false arrest and detention of perfectly innocent people, and at five o'clock it was announced that all telegraphic communication with the Continent and with the Western Hemisphere was suspended until further notice.

Beale came back from Barking, whither he had gone to interview a choleric commercial traveller who bore some facial resemblance to van Heerden, and had been arrested in consequence, and discovered that something like a Council of War was being held in Kitson's private room.

McNorton and two of his assistants were present. There was an Under-Secretary from the Foreign Office, a great scientist whose services had been called upon, and a man whom he recognized as a member of the Committee of the Corn Exchange. He shook his head in answer to McNorton's inquiring glance, and would have taken his seat at the table, but Kitson, who had risen on his entrance, beckoned him to the window.

"We can do without you for a little while, Beale," he said, lowering his voice. "There's somebody there," he jerked his head to a door which led to another room of his suite, "who requires an explanation, and I think your time will be so fully occupied in the next few days that you had better seize this opportunity whilst you have it."

"Miss Cresswell!" said Beale, in despair.

The old man nodded slowly.

"What does she know?"

"That is for you to discover," said Kitson gently, and pushed him toward the door.

With a quaking heart he turned the knob and stepped guiltily into the presence of the girl who in the eyes of the law was his wife.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM

She rose to meet him, and he stood spellbound, still holding the handle of the door. It seemed that she had taken on new qualities, a new and an ethereal grace. At the very thought even of his technical possession of this smiling girl who came forward to greet him, his heart thumped so loudly that he felt she must hear it. She was pale, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, but the hand that gripped his was firm and warm and living.

"I have to thank you for much, Mr. Beale," she said. "Mr. Kitson has told me that I owe my rescue to you."

"Did he?" he asked awkwardly, and wondered what else Kitson had told her.

"I am trying to be very sensible, and I want you to help me, because you are the most sensible man I know."

She went back to the lounge-chair where she had been sitting, and pointed to another.

"It was horribly melodramatic, wasn't it? but I suppose the life of a detective is full of melodrama."

"Oh, brimming over," he said. "If you keep very quiet I will give you a resume of my most interesting cases," he said, making a pathetic attempt to be flippant, and the girl detected something of his insincerity.

"You have had a trying day," she said, with quick sympathy, "have you arrested Doctor van Heerden?"

He shook his head.

"I am glad," she said.

"Glad?"

She nodded.

"Before he is arrested," she spoke with some hesitation, "I want one little matter cleared up. I asked Mr. Kitson, but he put me off and said you would tell me everything."

"What is it?" he asked steadily.

She got up and went to her bag which stood upon a side-table, opened it and took out something which she laid on the palm of her hand. She came back with hand extended, and Beale looked at the glittering object on her palm and was speechless.

"Do you see that?" she asked.

He nodded, having no words for the moment, for "that" was a thin gold ring.

"It is a wedding ring," she said, "and I found it on my finger when I recovered."

"Oh!" said Beale blankly.

"Was I married?" she asked.

He made two or three ineffectual attempts to speak and ended by nodding.

"I feared so," she said quietly, "you see I recollect nothing of what happened. The last thing I remembered was Doctor van Heerden sitting beside me and putting something into my arm. It hurt a little, but not very much, and I remember I spoke to him. I think it was about you," a little colour came to her face, "or perhaps he was speaking about you, I am not sure," she said hurriedly; "I know that you came into it somehow, and that is all I can recall."

"Nothing else?" he asked dismally.

"Nothing," she said.

"Try, try, try to remember," he urged her.

He realized he was being a pitiable coward and that he wanted to shift the responsibility for the revelation upon her. She smiled, and shook her head.

"I am sorry but I can't remember anything. Now you are going to tell me."

He discovered that he was sitting on the edge of the chair and that he was more nervous than he had ever been in his life.

"So I am going to tell you," he said, in a hollow voice, "of course I'll tell you. It is rather difficult, you understand."

She looked at him kindly.

"I know it must be difficult for a man like you to speak of your own achievements. But for once you are going to be immodest," she laughed.

"Well, you see," he began, "I knew van Heerden wanted to marry you. I knew that all along. I guessed he wanted to marry you for your money, because in the circumstances there was nothing else he could want to marry you for," he added. "I mean," he corrected himself hastily, "that money was the most attractive thing to him."

"This doesn't sound very flattering," she smiled.

"I know I am being crude, but you will forgive me when you learn what I have to say," he said huskily. "Van Heerden wanted to marry you——"

"And he married me," she said, "and I am going to break that marriage as soon as I possibly can."

"I know, I hope so," said Stanford Beale. "I believe it is difficult, but I will do all I possibly can. Believe me, Miss Cresswell——"

"I am not Miss Cresswell any longer," she said with a wry little face, "but please don't call me by my real name."

"I won't," he said fervently.

"You knew he wanted to marry me for my money and not for my beauty or my accomplishments," she said, "and so you followed me down to Deans Folly."

"Yes, yes, but I must explain. I know it will sound horrible to you and you may have the lowest opinion of me, but I have got to tell you."

He saw the look of alarm gather in her eyes and plunged into his story.

"I thought that if you were already married van Heerden would be satisfied and take no further steps against you."

"But I wasn't already married," she said, puzzled.

"Wait, wait, please," he begged, "keep that in your mind, that I was satisfied van Heerden wanted you for your money, and that if you were already married or even if you weren't and he thought you were I could save you from dangers, the extent of which even I do not know. And there was a man named Homo, a crook. He had been a parson and had all the manner and style of his profession. So I got a special licence in my own name."

"You?" she said breathlessly. "A marriage licence? To marry me?"

He nodded.

"And I took Homo with me in my search for you. I knew that I should have a very small margin of time, and I thought if Homo performed the ceremony and I could confront van Heerden with the accomplished deed——"

She sprang to her feet with a laugh.

"Oh, I see, I see," she said. "Oh, how splendid! And you went through this mock ceremony! Where was I?"

"You were at the window," he said miserably.

"But how lovely! And you were outside and your parson with the funny name—but that's delicious! So I wasn't married at all and this is your ring." She picked it up with a mocking light in her eyes, and held it out to him, but he shook his head.

"You were married," he said, in a voice which was hardly audible.

"Married? How?"

"Homo was not a fake! He was a real clergyman! And the marriage was legal!"

They looked at one another without speaking. On the girl's part there was nothing but pure amazement; but Stanford Beale read horror, loathing, consternation and unforgiving wrath, and waited, as the criminal waits for his sentence, upon her next words.

"So I am really married—to you," she said wonderingly.

"You will never forgive me, I know." He did not look at her now. "My own excuse is that I did what I did because I—wanted to save you. I might have sailed in with a gun and shot them up. I might have waited my chance and broken into the house. I might have taken a risk and surrounded the place with police, but that would have meant delay. I didn't do the normal things or take the normal view—I couldn't with you."

He did not see the momentary tenderness in her eyes, because he was not looking at her, and went on:

"That's the whole of the grisly story. Mr. Kitson will advise you as to what steps you may take to free yourself. It was a most horrible blunder, and it was all the more tragic because you were the victim, you of all the persons in the world!"

She had put the ring down, and now she took it up again and examined it curiously.

"It is rather—quaint, isn't it?" she asked.

"Oh, very."

He thought he heard a sob and looked up. She was laughing, at first silently, then, as the humour of the thing seized her, her laugh rang clear and he caught its infection.

"It's funny," she said at last, wiping her eyes, "there is a humorous side to it. Poor Mr. Beale!"

"I deserve a little pity," he said ruefully.

"Why?" she asked quickly. "Have you committed bigamy?"

"Not noticeably so," he answered, with a smile.

"Well, what are you going to do about it? It's rather serious when one thinks of it—seriously. So I am Mrs. Stanford Beale—poor Mr. Beale, and poor Mrs. Beale-to-be. I do hope," she said, and this time her seriousness was genuine, "that I have not upset any of your plans—too much. Oh," she sat down suddenly, staring at him, "it would be awful," she said in a hushed voice, "and I would never forgive myself. Is there—forgive my asking the question, but I suppose," with a flashing smile, "as your wife I am entitled to your confidence—is there somebody you are going to marry?"

"I have neither committed bigamy nor do I contemplate it," said Beale, who was gradually recovering his grip of the situation, "if you mean am I engaged to somebody—in fact, to a girl," he said recklessly, "the answer is in the negative. There will be no broken hearts on my side of the family. I have no desire to probe your wounded heart——"

"Don't be flippant," she stopped him sternly; "it is a very terrible situation, Mr. Beale, and I hardly dare to think of it."

"I realize how terrible it is," he said, suddenly bold, "and as I tell you, I will do everything I can to correct my blunder."

"Does Mr. Kitson know?" she asked.

He nodded.

"What did Mr. Kitson say? Surely he gave you some advice."

"He said——" began Stanford, and went red.

The girl did not pursue the subject.

"Come, let us talk about the matter like rational beings," she said cheerfully. "I have got over my first inclination to swoon. You must curb your very natural desire to be haughty."

"I cannot tell you what we can do yet. I don't want to discuss the unpleasant details of a divorce," he said, "and perhaps you will let me have a few days before we decide on any line of action. Van Heerden is still at large, and until he is under lock and key and this immense danger which threatens the world is removed, I can hardly think straight."

"Mr. Kitson has told me about van Heerden," she said quietly. "Isn't it rather a matter for the English police to deal with? As I have reason to know," she shivered slightly, "Doctor van Heerden is a man without any fear or scruple."

"My scruples hardly keep me awake at night," he said, "and I guess I'm not going to let up on van Heerden. I look upon it as my particular job."

"Isn't it"—she hesitated—"isn't it rather dangerous?"

"For me?" he laughed, "no, I don't think so. And even if it were in the most tragic sense of the word dangerous, why, that would save you a great deal of unpleasantness."

"I think you are being horrid," she said.

"I am sorry," he responded quickly, "I was fishing for a little pity, and it was rather cheap and theatrical. No, I do not think there is very much danger. Van Heerden is going to keep under cover, and he is after something bigger than my young life."

"Is Milsom with him?"

"He is the weak link in van Heerden's scheme," Beale said. "Somehow van Heerden doesn't strike me as a good team leader, and what little I have seen of Milsom leads me to the belief that he is hardly the man to follow the doctor's lead blindly. Besides, it is always easier to catch two men than one," he laughed. "That is an old detective's axiom and it works out."

She put out her hand.

"It's a tangled business, isn't it?" she said. "I mean us. Don't let it add to your other worries. Forget our unfortunate relationship until we can smooth things out."

He shook her hand in silence.

"And now I am coming out to hear all that you clever people suggest," she said. "Please don't look alarmed. I have been talking all the afternoon and have been narrating my sad experience—such as I remember—to the most important people. Cabinet Ministers and police commissioners and doctors and things."

"One moment," he said.

He took from his pocket a stout book.

"I was wondering what that was," she laughed. "You haven't been buying me reading-matter?"

He nodded, and held the volume so that she could read the title.

"'A Friend in Need,' by S. Beale. I didn't know you wrote!" she said in surprise.

"I am literary and even worse," he said flippantly. "I see you have a shelf of books here. If you will allow me I will put it with the others."

"But mayn't I see it?"

He shook his head.

"I just want to tell you all you have said about van Heerden is true. He is a most dangerous man. He may yet be dangerous to you. I don't want you to touch that little book unless you are in really serious trouble. Will you promise me?"

She opened her eyes wide.

"But, Mr. Beale——?"

"Will you promise me?" he said again.

"Of course I'll promise you, but I don't quite understand."

"You will understand," he said.

He opened the door for her and she passed out ahead of him. Kitson came to meet them.

"I suppose there is no news?" asked Stanford.

"None," said the other, "except high political news. There has been an exchange of notes between the Triple Alliance and the German Government. All communication with the Ukraine is cut off, and three ships have been sunk in the Bosphorus so cleverly that our grain ships in the Black Sea are isolated."

"That's bad," said Beale.

He walked to the table. It was littered with maps and charts and printed tabulations. McNorton got up and joined them.

"I have just had a 'phone message through from the Yard," he said. "Carter, my assistant, says that he's certain van Heerden has not left London."

"Has the girl spoken?"

"Glaum? No, she's as dumb as an oyster. I doubt if you would get her to speak even if you put her through the third degree, and we don't allow that."

"So I am told," said Beale dryly.

There was a knock at the door.

"Unlock it somebody," said Kitson. "I turned the key."

The nearest person was the member of the Corn Exchange Committee, and he clicked back the lock and the door opened to admit a waiter.

"There's a man here——" he said; but before he could say more he was pushed aside and a dusty, dishevelled figure stepped into the room and glanced round.

"My name is Milsom," he said. "I have come to give King's Evidence!"



CHAPTER XXIX

THE LOST CODE

"I'm Milsom," said the man in the doorway again.

His clothes were grimed and dusty, his collar limp and soiled. There were two days' growth of red-grey stubble on his big jaw, and he bore himself like a man who was faint from lack of sleep.

He walked unsteadily to the table and fell into a chair.

"Where is van Heerden?" asked Beale, but Milsom shook his head.

"I left him two hours ago, after a long and unprofitable talk on patriotism," he said, and laughed shortly. "At that time he was making his way back to his house in Southwark."

"Then he is in London—here in London!"

Milsom nodded.

"You won't find him," he said brusquely. "I tell you I've left him after a talk about certain patriotic misgivings on my part—look!"

He lifted his right hand, which hitherto he had kept concealed by his side, and Oliva shut her eyes and felt deathly sick.

"Right index digit and part of the phalanges shot away," said Milsom philosophically. "That was my trigger-finger—but he shot first. Give me a drink!"

They brought him a bottle of wine, and he drank it from a long tumbler in two great breathless gulps.

"You've closed the coast to him," he said, "you shut down your wires and cables, you're watching the roads, but he'll get his message through, if——"

"Then he hasn't cabled?" said Beale eagerly. "Milsom, this means liberty for you—liberty and comfort. Tell us the truth, man, help us hold off this horror that van Heerden is loosing on the world and there's no reward too great for you."

Milsom's eyes narrowed.

"It wasn't the hope of reward or hope of pardon that made me break with van Heerden," he said in his slow way. "You'd laugh yourself sick if I told you. It was—it was the knowledge that this country would be down and out; that the people who spoke my tongue and thought more or less as I thought should be under the foot of the Beast—fevered sentimentality! You don't believe that?"

"I believe it."

It was Oliva who spoke, and it appeared that this was the first time that Milsom had noticed her presence, for his eyes opened wider.

"You—oh, you believe it, do you?" and he nodded.

"But why is van Heerden waiting?" asked McNorton. "What is he waiting for?"

The big man rolled his head helplessly from side to side, and the hard cackle of his laughter was very trying to men whose nerves were raw and on edge.

"That's the fatal lunacy of it! I think it must be a national characteristic. You saw it in the war again and again—a wonderful plan brought to naught by some piece of over-cleverness on the part of the super-man."

A wild hope leapt to Beale's heart.

"Then it has failed! The rust has not answered——?"

But Milsom shook his head wearily.

"The rust is all that he thinks—and then some," he said. "No, it isn't that. It is in the work of organization where the hitch has occurred. You know something of the story. Van Heerden has agents in every country in the world. He has spent nearly a hundred thousand pounds in perfecting his working plans, and I'm willing to admit that they are wellnigh perfect. Such slight mistakes as sending men to South Africa and Australia where the crops are six months later than the European and American harvests may be forgiven, because the German thinks longitudinally, and north and south are the two points of the compass which he never bothers his head about. If the Germans had been a seafaring people they'd have discovered America before Columbus, but they would never have found the North Pole or rounded the Cape in a million years."

He paused, and they saw the flicker of a smile in his weary eyes.

"The whole scheme is under van Heerden's hand. At the word 'Go' thousands of his agents begin their work of destruction—but the word must come from him. He has so centralized his scheme that if he died suddenly without that word being uttered, the work of years would come to naught. I guess he is suspicious of everybody, including his new Government. For the best part of a year he has been arranging and planning. With the assistance of a girl, a compatriot of his, he has reduced all things to order. In every country is a principal agent who possesses a copy of a simple code. At the proper moment van Heerden would cable a word which meant 'Get busy' or 'Hold off until you hear from me,' or 'Abandon scheme for this year and collect cultures.' I happen to be word-perfect in the meanings of the code words because van Heerden has so often drummed them into me."

"What are the code words?"

"I'm coming to that," nodded Milsom. "Van Heerden is the type of scientist that never trusts his memory. You find that kind in all the school—they usually spend their time making the most complete and detailed notes, and their studies are packed with memoranda. Yet he had a wonderful memory for the commonplace things—for example, in the plain English of his three messages he was word perfect. He could tell you off-hand the names and addresses of all his agents. But when it came to scientific data his mind was a blank until he consulted his authorities. It seemed that once he made a note his mind was incapable of retaining the information he had committed to paper. That, as I say, is a phenomenon which is not infrequently met with amongst men of science."

"And he had committed the code to paper?" asked Kitson.

"I am coming to that. After the fire at the Paddington works, van Heerden said the time had come to make a get away. He was going to the Continent, I was to sail for Canada. 'Before you go,' he said, 'I will give you the code—but I am afraid that I cannot do that until after ten o'clock.'"

McNorton was scribbling notes in shorthand and carefully circled the hour.

"We went back to his flat and had breakfast together—it was then about five o'clock. He packed a few things and I particularly noticed that he looked very carefully at the interior of a little grip which he had brought the previous night from Staines. He was so furtive, carrying the bag to the light of the window, that I supposed he was consulting his code, and I wondered why he should defer giving me the information until ten o'clock. Anyway, I could swear he took something from the bag and slipped it into his pocket. We left the flat soon after and drove to a railway station where the baggage was left. Van Heerden had given me bank-notes for a thousand pounds in case we should be separated, and I went on to the house in South London. You needn't ask me where it is because van Heerden is not there."

He gulped again at the wine.

"At eleven o'clock van Heerden came back," resumed Milsom, "and if ever a man was panic-stricken it was he—the long and the short of it is that the code was mislaid."

"Mislaid!" Beale was staggered.

Here was farce interpolated into tragedy—the most grotesque, the most unbelievable farce.

"Mislaid," said Milsom. "He did not say as much, but I gathered from the few disjointed words he flung at me that the code was not irredeemably lost; in fact, I have reason to believe that he knows where it is. It was after that that van Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help him in a burglary—and burglary is not my forte."

"What did he want to burgle?" asked McNorton, with professional interest.

"Ah! There you have me! It was the question I asked and he refused to answer. I was to put myself in his hands and there was to be some shooting if, as he thought likely, a caretaker was left on the premises to be entered. I told him flat—we were sitting on Wandsworth Common at the time—that he could leave me out, and that is where we became mutually offensive."

He looked at his maimed hand.

"I dressed it roughly at a chemist's. The iodine open dressing isn't beautiful, but it is antiseptic. He shot to kill, too, there's no doubt about that. A very perfect little gentleman!"

"He's in London?" said McNorton. "That simplifies matters."

"To my mind it complicates rather than simplifies," said Beale. "London is a vast proposition. Can you give us any idea as to the hour the burglary was planned for?"

"Eleven," said Milsom promptly, "that is to say, in a little over an hour's time."

"And you have no idea of the locality?"

"Somewhere in the East of London. We were to have met at Aldgate."

"I don't understand it," said McNorton. "Do you suggest that the code is in the hands of somebody who is not willing to part with it? And now that he no longer needs it for you, is there any reason why he should wait?"

"Every reason," replied Milsom, and Stanford Beale nodded in agreement. "It was not only for me he wanted it. He as good as told me that unless he recovered it he would be unable to communicate with his men."

"What do you think he'll do?"

"He'll get Bridgers to assist him. Bridgers is a pretty sore man, and the doctor knows just where he can find him."

As Oliva listened an idea slowly dawned in her mind that she might supply a solution to the mystery of the missing code. It was a wildly improbable theory she held, but even so slender a possibility was not to be discarded. She slipped from the group and went back to her room. For the accommodation of his ward, James Kitson had taken the adjoining suite to his own and had secured a lady's maid from an agency for the girl's service. She passed through the sitting-room to her own bedroom, and found the maid putting the room ready for the night.

"Minnie," she said, throwing a quick glance about the apartment, "where did you put the clothes I took off when I came?"

"Here, miss."

The girl opened the wardrobe and Oliva made a hurried search.

"Did you find—anything, a little ticket?"

The girl smiled.

"Oh yes, miss. It was in your stocking."

Oliva laughed.

"I suppose you thought it was rather queer, finding that sort of thing in a girl's stocking," she asked, but the maid was busily opening the drawers of the dressing-table in search of something.

"Here it is, miss."

She held a small square ticket in her hand and held it with such disapproving primness that Oliva nearly laughed.

"I found it in your stocking, miss," she said again.

"Quite right," said Oliva coolly, "that's where I put it. I always carry my pawn tickets in my stocking."

The admirable Minnie sniffed.

"I suppose you have never seen such a thing," smiled Oliva, "and you hardly knew what it was."

The lady's maid turned very red. She had unfortunately seen many such certificates of penury, but all that was part of her private life, and she had been shocked beyond measure to be confronted with this too-familiar evidence of impecuniosity in the home of a lady who represented to her an assured income and comfortable pickings.

Oliva went back to her sitting-room and debated the matter. It was a sense of diffidence, the fear of making herself ridiculous, which arrested her. Otherwise she might have flown into the room, declaimed her preposterous theories and leave these clever men to work out the details. She opened the door and with the ticket clenched in her hand stepped into the room.

If they had missed her after she had left nobody saw her return. They were sitting in a group about the table, firing questions at the big unshaven man who had made such a dramatic entrance to the conference and who, with a long cigar in the corner of his mouth, was answering readily and fluently.

But faced with the tangible workings of criminal investigation her resolution and her theories shrank to vanishing-point. She clasped the ticket in her hand and felt for a pocket, but the dressmaker had not provided her with that useful appendage.

So she turned and went softly back to her room, praying that she would not be noticed. She closed the door gently behind her and turned to meet a well-valeted man in evening-dress who was standing in the middle of the room, a light overcoat thrown over his arm, his silk hat tilted back from his forehead, a picture of calm assurance.

"Don't move," said van Heerden, "and don't scream. And be good enough to hand over the pawn ticket you are holding in your hand."

Silently she obeyed, and as she handed the little pasteboard across the table which separated them she looked past him to the bookshelf behind his head, and particularly to a new volume which bore the name of Stanford Beale.



CHAPTER XXX

THE WATCH

"Thanks," said van Heerden, pocketing the ticket, "it is of no use to me now, for I cannot wait. I gather that you have not disclosed the fact that this ticket is in your possession."

"I don't know how you gather that," she said.

"Lower your voice!" he hissed menacingly. "I gather as much because Beale knew the ticket would not be in my possession now. If he only knew, if he only had a hint of its existence, I fear my scheme would fail. As it is, it will succeed. And now," he said with a smile, "time is short and your preparations must be of the briefest. I will save you the trouble of asking questions by telling you that I am going to take you along with me. I certainly cannot afford to leave you. Get your coat."

With a shrug she walked past him to the bedroom and he followed.

"Are we going far?" she asked.

There was no tremor in her voice and she felt remarkably self-possessed.

"That you will discover," said he.

"I am not asking out of idle curiosity, but I want to know whether I ought to take a bag."

"Perhaps it would be better," he said.

She carried the little attache case back to the sitting-room.

"You have no objection to my taking a little light reading-matter?" she asked contemptuously. "I am afraid you are not a very entertaining companion, Dr. van Heerden."

"Excellent girl," said van Heerden cheerfully. "Take anything you like."

She slipped a book from the shelf and nearly betrayed herself by an involuntary exclamation as she felt its weight.

"You are not very original in your methods," she said, "this is the second time you have spirited me off."

"The gaols of England, as your new-found friend Milsom will tell you, are filled with criminals who departed from the beaten tracks," said van Heerden. "Walk out into the corridor and turn to the right. I will be close behind you. A little way along you will discover a narrow passage which leads to the service staircase. Go down that. I am sure you believe me when I say that I will kill you if you attempt to make any signal or scream or appeal for help."

She did not answer. It was because of this knowledge and this fear, which was part of her youthful equipment—for violent death is a very terrible prospect to the young and the healthy—that she obeyed him at all.

They walked down the stone stairs, through an untidy, low-roofed lobby, redolent of cooking food, into the street, without challenge and without attracting undue notice.

Van Heerden's car was waiting at the end of the street, and she thought she recognized the chauffeur as Bridgers.

"Once more we ride together," said van Heerden gaily, "and what will be the end of this adventure for you depends entirely upon your loyalty—what are you opening your bag for?" he asked, peering in the dark.

"I am looking for a handkerchief," said Oliva. "I am afraid I am going to cry!"

He settled himself back in the corner of the car with a sigh of resignation, accepting her explanation—sarcasm was wholly wasted on van Heerden.

* * * * *

"Well, gentlemen," said Milsom, "I don't think there's anything more I can tell you. What are you going to do with me?"

"I'll take the responsibility of not executing the warrant," said McNorton. "You will accompany one of my men to his home to-night and you will be under police supervision."

"That's no new experience," said Milsom, "there's only one piece of advice I want to give you."

"And that is?" asked Beale.

"Don't underrate van Heerden. You have no conception of his nerve. There isn't a man of us here," he said, "whose insurance rate wouldn't go up to ninety per cent. if van Heerden decided to get him. I don't profess that I can help you to explain his strange conduct to-day. I can only outline the psychology of it, but how and where he has hidden his code and what circumstances prevent its recovery, is known only to van Heerden."

He nodded to the little group, and accompanied by McNorton left the room.

"There goes a pretty bad man," said Kitson, "or I am no judge of character. He's an old lag, isn't he?"

Beale nodded.

"Murder," he said laconically. "He lived after his time. He should have been a contemporary of the Borgias."

"A poisoner!" shuddered one of the under-secretaries. "I remember the case. He killed his nephew and defended himself on the plea that the youth was a degenerate, as he undoubtedly was."

"He might have got that defence past in America or France," said Beale, "but unfortunately there was a business end to the matter. He was the sole heir of his nephew's considerable fortune, and a jury from the Society of Eugenics would have convicted him on that."

He looked at his watch and turned his eyes to Kitson.

"I presume Miss Cresswell is bored and has retired for the night," he said.

"I'll find out in a moment," said Kitson. "Did you speak to her?"

Beale nodded, and his eyes twinkled.

"Did you make any progress?"

"I broke the sad news to her, if that's what you mean."

"You told her she was married to you? Good heavens! What did she say?"

"Well, she didn't faint, I don't think she's the fainting kind. She is cursed with a sense of humour, and refused even to take a tragic view."

"That's bad," said Kitson, shaking his head. "A sense of humour is out of place in a divorce court, and that is where your little romance is going to end, my friend."

"I am not so sure," said Beale calmly, and the other stared at him.

"You have promised me," he began, with a note of acerbity in his voice.

"And you have advised me," said Beale.

Kitson choked down something which he was going to say, but which he evidently thought was better left unsaid.

"Wait," he commanded, "I will find out whether Miss Cresswell," he emphasized the words, "has gone to bed."

He passed through the door to Oliva's sitting-room and was gone a few minutes. When he came back Beale saw his troubled face, and ran forward to meet him.

"She's not there," said Kitson.

"Not in her room?"

"Neither in the sitting-room nor the bedroom. I have rung for her maid. Oh, here you are."

Prim Minnie came through the bedroom door.

"Where is your mistress?"

"I thought she was with you, sir."

"What is this?" said Beale, stooped and picked up a white kid glove. "She surely hasn't gone out," he said in consternation.

"That's not a lady's glove, sir," said the girl, "that is a gentleman's."

It was a new glove, and turning it over he saw stamped inside the words: "Glebler, Rotterdam."

"Has anybody been here?" he asked.

"Not to my knowledge, sir. The young lady told me she did not want me any more to-night." The girl hesitated. It seemed a veritable betrayal of her mistress to disclose such a sordid matter as the search for a pawn ticket.

Beale noticed the hesitation.

"You must tell me everything, and tell me quickly," he said.

"Well, sir," said the maid, "the lady came in to look for something she brought with her when she came here."

"I remember!" cried Kitson, "she told me she had brought away something very curious from van Heerden's house and made me guess what it was. Something interrupted our talk—what was it?"

"Well, sir," said the maid, resigned, "I won't tell you a lie, sir. It was a pawn ticket."

"A pawn ticket!" cried Kitson and Beale in unison.

"Are you sure?" asked the latter.

"Absolutely sure, sir."

"But she couldn't have brought a pawn ticket from van Heerden's house. What was it for?"

"I beg your pardon, sir."

"What was on the pawn ticket?" said Kitson impatiently. "What article had been pledged?"

Again the girl hesitated. To betray her mistress was unpleasant. To betray herself—as she would if she confessed that she had most carefully and thoroughly read the voucher—was unthinkable.

"You know what was on it," said Beale, in his best third degree manner, "now don't keep us waiting. What was it?"

"A watch, sir."

"How much was it pledged for?"

"Ten shillings, sir."

"Do you remember the name."

"In a foreign name, sir—van Horden."

"Van Heerden," said Beale quickly, "and at what pawnbrokers?"

"Well, sir," said the girl, making a fight for her reputation, "I only glanced at the ticket and I only noticed——"

"Yes, you did," interrupted Beale sharply, "you read every line of it. Where was it?"

"Rosenblaum Bros., of Commercial Road," blurted the girl.

"Any number?"

"I didn't see the number."

"You will find them in the telephone book," said Kitson. "What does it mean?"

But Beale was half-way to Kitson's sitting-room, arriving there in time to meet McNorton who had handed over his charge to his subordinate.

"I've found it!" cried Beale.

"Found what?" asked Kitson.

"The code!"

"Where? How?" asked McNorton.

"Unless I am altogether wrong the code is contained, either engraved on the case or written on a slip of paper enclosed within the case of a watch. Can't you see it all plainly now? Van Heerden neither trusted his memory nor his subordinates. He had his simple code written, as we shall find, upon thin paper enclosed in the case of a hunter watch, and this he pledged. A pawnbroker's is the safest of safe deposits. Searching for clues, suppose the police had detected his preparations, the pledged ticket might have been easily overlooked."

Kitson was looking at him with an expression of amazed indignation. Here was a man who had lost his wife, and Kitson believed that this young detective loved the girl as few women are loved; but in the passion of the chase, in the production of a new problem, he was absorbed to the exclusion of all other considerations in the greater game.

Yet he did Beale an injustice if he only knew, for the thought of Oliva's new peril ran through all his speculations, his rapid deductions, his lightning plans.

"Miss Cresswell found the ticket and probably extracted it as a curiosity. These things are kept in little envelopes, aren't they, McNorton?"

The police chief nodded.

"That was it, then. She took it out and left the envelope behind, and van Heerden did not discover his loss until he went to find the voucher to give Milsom the code. Don't you remember? In the first place he said he couldn't give him the code until after ten o'clock, which is probably the hour the pawnbrokers open for business."

McNorton nodded again.

"Then do you remember that Milsom said that the code was not irredeemably lost and that van Heerden knew where it was. In default of finding the ticket he decided to burgle the pawnbroker's, and that burglary is going through to-night."

"But he could have obtained a duplicate of the ticket," said McNorton.

"How?" asked Beale quickly.

"By going before a magistrate and swearing an affidavit."

"In his own name," said Beale, "you see, he couldn't do that. It would mean walking into the lion's den. No, burglary was his only chance."

"But what of Oliva?" said Kitson impatiently, "I tell you, Beale, I am not big enough or stoical enough to think outside of that girl's safety."

Beale swung round at him.

"You don't think I've forgotten that, do you?" he said in a low voice. "You don't think that has been out of my mind?" His face was tense and drawn. "I think, I believe that Oliva is safe," he said quietly. "I believe that Oliva and not any of us here will deliver van Heerden to justice."

"Are you mad?" asked Kitson in astonishment.

"I am very sane. Come here!"

He gripped the old lawyer by the arm and led him back to the girl's room.

"Look," he said, and pointed.

"What do you mean, the bookshelf?"

Beale nodded.

"Half an hour ago I gave Oliva a book," he said, "that book is no longer there."

"But in the name of Heaven how can a book save her?" demanded the exasperated Kitson.

Stanford Beale did not answer.

"Yes, yes, she's safe. I know she's safe," he said. "If Oliva is the girl I think she is then I see van Heerden's finish."



CHAPTER XXXI

A CORN CHANDLER'S BILL

The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling, and Beale and McNorton alighted.

It was a main street and was almost deserted. Beale looked up at the windows. They were dark. He knocked at the side-entrance of the shop, and presently the two men were joined by a policeman.

"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at Highgate."

He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A nightfarer who had been in the shade on the opposite side of the street came across and volunteered information.

He had seen another car drive up and a gentleman had alighted. He had opened the door with a key and gone in. There was nothing suspicious about him. He was "quite a gentleman, and was in evening-dress." The constable thought it was one of the partners of Rosenblaum in convivial and resplendent garb. He had been in the house ten minutes then had come out again, locking the door behind him, and had driven off just before Beale's car had arrived.

It was not until half an hour later that an agitated little man brought by the police from Highgate admitted the two men.

There was no need to make a long search. The moment the light was switched on in the shop Beale made his discovery. On the broad counter lay a sheet of paper and a little heap of silver coins. He swept the money aside and read:

"For the redemption of one silver hunter, 10s. 6d."

It was signed in the characteristic handwriting that Beale knew so well "Van Heerden, M.D."

The two men looked at one another.

"What do you make of that?" asked McNorton.

Beale carried the paper to the light and examined it, and McNorton went on:

"He's a pretty cool fellow. I suppose he had the money and the message all ready for our benefit."

Beale shook his head.

"On the contrary," he said, "this was done on the spur of the moment. A piece of bravado which occurred to him when he had the watch. Look at this paper. You can imagine him searching his pocket for a piece of waste paper and taking the first that came to his hand. It is written in ink with the pawnbroker's own pen. The inkwell is open," he lifted up the pen, "the nib is still wet," he said.

McNorton took the paper from his hands.

It was a bill from a corn-chandler's at Horsham, the type of bill that was sent in days of war economy which folded over and constituted its own envelope. It was addressed to "J. B. Harden, Esq." ("That was the alias he used when he took the wine vaults at Paddington," explained McNorton) and had been posted about a week before. Attached to the bottom of the account, which was for L3 10s., was a little slip calling attention to the fact that "this account had probably been overlooked."

Beale's finger traced the item for which the bill was rendered, and McNorton uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Curious, isn't it?" said Beale, as he folded the paper and put it away in his pocket, "how these very clever men always make some trifling error which brings them to justice. I don't know how many great schemes I have seen brought to nothing through some such act of folly as this, some piece of theatrical bravado which benefited the criminal nothing at all."

"Good gracious," said McNorton wonderingly, "of course, that's what he is going to do. I never thought of that. It is in the neighbourhood of Horsham we must look for him, and I think if we can get one of the Messrs. Billingham out of bed in a couple of hours' time we shall do a good night's work."

They went outside and again questioned the policeman. He remembered the car turning round and going back the way it had come. It had probably taken one of the innumerable side-roads which lead from the main thoroughfare, and in this way they had missed it.

"I want to go to the 'Megaphone' office first," said Beale. "I have some good friends on that paper and I am curious to know how bad the markets are. The night cables from New York should be coming in by now."

In his heart was a sickening fear which he dared not express. What would the morrow bring forth? If this one man's cupidity and hate should succeed in releasing the terror upon the world, what sort of a world would it leave? Through the windows of the car he could see the placid policemen patrolling the streets, caught a glimpse of other cars brilliantly illuminated bearing their laughing men and women back to homes, who were ignorant of the monstrous danger which threatened their security and life.

He passed the facades of great commercial mansions which in a month's time might but serve to conceal the stark ruin within.

To him it was a night of tremendous tragedy, and for the second time in his life in the numbness induced by the greater peril and the greater anxiety he failed to wince at the thought of the danger in which Oliva stood.

Indeed, analysing his sensations she seemed to him on this occasion less a victim than a fellow-worker and he found a strange comfort in that thought of partnership.

The Megaphone buildings blazed with light when the car drew up to the door, messenger-boys were hurrying through the swing-doors, the two great elevators were running up and down without pause. The grey editor with a gruff voice threw over a bundle of flimsies.

"Here are the market reports," he growled, "they are not very encouraging."

Beale read them and whistled, and the editor eyed him keenly.

"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked the detective. "Wheat at a shilling a pound already. God knows what it's going to be to-morrow!"

"Any other news?" asked Beale.

"We have asked Germany to explain why she has prohibited the export of wheat and to give us a reason for the stocks she holds and the steps she has taken during the past two months to accumulate reserves."

"An ultimatum?"

"Not exactly an ultimatum. There's nothing to go to war about. The Government has mobilized the fleet and the French Government has partially mobilized her army. The question is," he said, "would war ease the situation?"

Beale shook his head.

"The battle will not be fought in the field," he said, "it will be fought right here in London, in all your great towns, in Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Cardiff. It will be fought in New York and in a thousand townships between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and if the German scheme comes off we shall be beaten before a shot is fired."

"What does it mean?" asked the editor, "why is everybody buying wheat so frantically? There is no shortage. The harvests in the United States and Canada are good."

"There will be no harvests," said Beale solemnly; and the journalist gaped at him.



CHAPTER XXXII

THE END OF VAN HEERDEN

Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleasant travelling-companion. When a man takes a girl, against her will, from a pleasant suite at the best hotel in London, compels her at the peril of death to accompany him on a motor-car ride in the dead of the night, and when his offence is a duplication of one which had been committed less than a week before, he not unnaturally anticipates tears, supplications, or in the alternative a frigid and unapproachable silence.

To his amazement Oliva was extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros., and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had been taciturn and uncommunicative was in quite an amiable mood.

"I used to think," she said, "that motor-car abductions were the invention of sensational writers, but you seem to make a practice of it. You are not very original, Dr. van Heerden. I think I've told you that before."

He smiled in the darkness as the car sped smoothly through the deserted streets.

"I must plead guilty to being rather unoriginal," he said, "but I promise you that this little adventure shall not end as did the last."

"It can hardly do that," she laughed, "I can only be married once whilst Mr. Beale is alive."

"I forgot you were married," he said suddenly, then after a pause, "I suppose you will divorce him?"

"Why?" she asked innocently.

"But you're not fond of that fellow, are you?"

"Passionately," she said calmly, "he is my ideal."

The reply took away his breath and certainly silenced him.

"How is this adventure to end?" she demanded. "Are you going to maroon me on a desert island, or are you taking me to Germany?"

"How did you know I am trying to get to Germany?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, Mr. Beale thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he reckoned that he would catch you somewhere near the coast."

"He did, did he?" said the other calmly. "I shall deny him that pleasure. I don't intend taking you to Germany. Indeed, it is not my intention to detain you any longer than is necessary."

"For which I am truly grateful," she smiled, "but why detain me at all?"

"That is a stupid question to ask when I am sure you have no doubt in your mind as to why it is necessary to keep you close to me until I have finished my work. I think I told you some time ago," he went on, "that I had a great scheme. The other day you called me a Hun, by which I suppose you meant that I was a German. It is perfectly true that I am a German and I am a patriotic German. To me even in these days of his degradation the Kaiser is still little less than a god."

His voice quivered a little, and the girl was struck dumb with wonder that a man of such intelligence, of such a wide outlook, of such modernity, should hold to views so archaic.

"Your country ruined Germany. You have sucked us dry. To say that I hate England and hate America—for you Anglo-Saxons are one in your soulless covetousness—is to express my feelings mildly."

"But what is your scheme?" she asked.

"Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics. America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."

"But how?" she asked, bewildered.

"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is stored in Germany."

"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's wheat comes from America and from Russia."

"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the American wheat—there will be no American wheat."

And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English. The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.

So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:

"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"

"What—what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you thanking God about?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing." She was her eager, animated self. "Tell me some more. It is a wonderful story. It is true, is it not?"

"True?" he laughed harshly, "you shall see how true it is. You shall see the world lie at the feet of German science. To-morrow the word will go forth. Look!" He clicked on a little electric light and held out his hand. In his palm lay a silver watch.

"I told you there was a code" (she was dimly conscious that he had spoken of a code but she had been so occupied by her own thoughts that she had not caught all that he had said). "That code was in this watch. Look!"

He pressed a knob and the case flew open. Pasted to the inside of the case was a circular piece of paper covered with fine writing.

"When you found that ticket you had the code in your hands," he chuckled; "if you or your friends had the sense to redeem that watch I could not have sent to-morrow the message of German liberation! See, it is very simple!" He pointed with his finger and held the watch half-way to the roof that the light might better reveal the wording. "This word means 'Proceed.' It will go to all my chief agents. They will transmit it by telegram to hundreds of centres. By Thursday morning great stretches of territory where the golden corn was waving so proudly to-day will be blackened wastes. By Saturday the world will confront its sublime catastrophe."

"But why have you three words?" she asked huskily.

"We Germans provide against all contingencies," he said, "we leave nothing to chance. We are not gamblers. We work on lines of scientific accuracy. The second word is to tell my agents to suspend operations until they hear from me. The third word means 'Abandon the scheme for this year'! We must work with the markets. A more favourable opportunity might occur—with so grand a conception it is necessary that we should obtain the maximum results for our labours."

He snapped the case of the watch and put it back in his pocket, turned out the light and settled himself back with a sigh of content.

"You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless——" A thought struck him, and he frowned.

"Unless——?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her assurance.

"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful fellow——"

"You wouldn't?" she gasped.

"Why not?" he said coolly. "I don't want you. Bridgers thinks that you are beautiful."

"Is he a Hun, too?" she asked, and he jerked round toward her.

"If Bridgers wants you he shall have you," he said harshly.

She knew she had made a mistake. There was no sense in antagonizing him, the more especially so since she had not yet learnt all that she wanted to know.

"I think your scheme is horrible," she said after awhile, "the wheat destruction scheme, I mean, not Bridgers. But it is a very great one."

The man was susceptible to flattery, for he became genial again.

"It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is the most colossal crime—I suppose they will call it a crime—that has ever been committed."

"But how are you going to get your code word away? The telegraphs are in the hands of the Government and I think you will find it difficult even if you have a secret wireless."

"Wireless, bah!" he said scornfully. "I never expected to send it by telegraph with or without wires. I have a much surer way, fraeulein, as you will see."

"But how will you escape?" she asked.

"I shall leave England to-morrow, soon after daybreak," he replied, with assurance, "by aeroplane, a long-distance flying-machine will land on my Sussex farm which will have British markings—indeed, it is already in England, and I and my good Bridgers will pass your coast without trouble."

He peered out of the window.

"This is Horsham, I think," he said, as they swept through what appeared to the girl to be a square. "That little building on the left is the railway station. You will see the signal lamps in a moment. My farm is about five miles down the Shoreham Road."

He was in an excellent temper as they passed through the old town and mounted the hill which leads to Shoreham, was politeness itself when the car had turned off the main road and had bumped over cart tracks to the door of a large building.

"This is your last escapade, Miss Cresswell, or Mrs. Beale I suppose I should call you," he said jovially, as he pushed her before him into a room where supper had been laid for two. "You see, you were not expected, but you shall have Bridgers'. It will be daylight in two hours," he said inconsequently, "you must have some wine."

She shook her head with a smile, and he laughed as if the implied suspicion of her refusal was the best joke in the world.

"Nein, nein, little friend," he said, "I shall not doctor you again. My days of doctoring have passed."

She had expected to find the farm in occupation, but apparently they were the only people there. The doctor had opened the door himself with a key, and no servant had appeared, nor apparently did he expect them to appear. She learnt afterwards that there were two farm servants, an old man and his wife, who lived in a cottage on the estate and came in the daytime to do the housework and prepare a cold supper against their master's coming.

Bridgers did not make his appearance. Apparently he was staying with his car. About three o'clock in the morning, when the first streaks of grey were showing in the sky, van Heerden rose to go in search of his assistant. Until then he had not ceased to talk of himself, of his scheme, of his great plan, of his early struggles, of his difficulties in persuading members of his Government to afford him the assistance he required. As he turned to the door she checked him with a word:

"I am immensely interested," she said, "but still, you have not told me how you intend to send your message."

"It is simple," he said, and beckoned to her.

They passed out of the house into the chill sweet dawn, made a half-circuit of the farm and came to a courtyard surrounded on three sides by low buildings. He opened a door to reveal another door covered with wire netting.

"Behold!" he laughed.

"Pigeons!" said the girl.

The dark interior of the shed was aflicker with white wings.

"Pigeons!" repeated van Heerden, closing the door, "and every one knows his way back to Germany. It has been a labour of love collecting them. And they are all British," he said with a laugh. "There I will give the British credit, they know more about pigeons than we Germans and have used them more in the war."

"But suppose your pigeon is shot down or falls by the way?" she asked, as they walked slowly back to the house.

"I shall send fifty," replied van Heerden calmly; "each will carry the same message and some at least will get home."

Back in the dining-room he cleared the remains of the supper from the table and went out of the room for a few minutes, returning with a small pad of paper, and she saw from the delicacy with which he handed each sheet that it was of the thinnest texture. Between each page he placed a carbon and began to write, printing the characters. There was only one word on each tiny sheet. When this was written he detached the leaves, putting them aside and using his watch as a paper-weight, and wrote another batch.

She watched him, fascinated, until he showed signs that he had completed his task. Then she lifted the little valise which she had at her side, put it on her knees, opened it and took out a book. It must have been instinct which made him raise his eyes to her.

"What have you got there?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, a book," she said, with an attempt at carelessness.

"But why have you got it out? You are not reading."

He leant over and snatched it from her and looked at the title.

"'A Friend in Need,'" he read. "By Stanford Beale—by Stanford Beale," he repeated, frowning. "I didn't know your husband wrote books?"

She made no reply. He turned back the cover and read the title page.

"But this is 'Smiles's Self Help,'" he said.

"It's the same thing," she replied.

He turned another page or two, then stopped, for he had come to a place where the centre of the book had been cut right out. The leaves had been glued together to disguise this fact, and what was apparently a book was in reality a small box.

"What was in there?" he asked, springing to his feet.

"This," she said, "don't move, Dr. van Heerden!"

The little hand which held the Browning was firm and did not quiver.

"I don't think you are going to send your pigeons off this morning, doctor," she said. "Stand back from the table." She leant over and seized the little heap of papers and the watch. "I am going to shoot you," she said steadily, "if you refuse to do as I tell you; because if I don't shoot you, you will kill me."

His face had grown old and grey in the space of a few seconds. The white hands he raised were shaking. He tried to speak but only a hoarse murmur came. Then his face went blank. He stared at the pistol, then stretched out his hands slowly toward it.

"Stand back!" she cried.

He jumped at her, and she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, and the next minute she was struggling in his arms. The man was hysterical with fear and relief and was giggling and cursing in the same breath. He wrenched the pistol from her hand and threw it on the table.

"You fool! You fool!" he shouted, "the safety-catch! You didn't put it down!"

She could have wept with anger and mortification. Beale had put the catch of the weapon at safety, not realizing that she did not understand the mechanism of it, and van Heerden in one lightning glance had seen his advantage.

"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your husband something which he will not touch!"

He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed "Bridgers!"

Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.

"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It is——"

"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"

He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these was Beale.

"It's no use your shouting for Bridgers because Bridgers is on the way to the jug," said McNorton. "I have a warrant for you, van Heerden."

The doctor turned with a howl of rage, snatched up the pistol which lay on the table, and thumbed down the safety-catch.

Beale and McNorton fired together, so that it seemed like a single shot that thundered through the room. Van Heerden slid forward, and fell sprawling across the table.

* * * * *

It was the Friday morning, and Beale stepped briskly through the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton, and declining the elevator went up the stairs two at a time. He burst into the room where Kitson and the girl were standing by the window.

"Wheat prices are tumbling down," he said, "the message worked."

"Thank Heaven for that!" said Kitson. "Then van Heerden's code message telling his gang to stop operations reached its destination!"

"Its destinations," corrected Beale cheerfully. "I released thirty pigeons with the magic word. The agents have been arrested," he said; "we notified the Government authorities, and there was a sheriff or a policeman in every post office when the code word came through—van Heerden's agents saw some curious telegraph messengers yesterday."

Kitson nodded and turned away.

"What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, with a light in her eyes. "You must feel quite lost without this great quest of yours."

"There are others," said Stanford Beale.

"When do you return to America?" she asked.

He fenced the question, but she brought him back to it.

"I have a great deal of business to do in London before I go," he said.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well," he hesitated, "I have some legal business."

"Are you suing somebody?" she asked, wilfully dense.

He rubbed his head in perplexity.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't exactly know what I've got to do or what sort of figure I shall cut. I have never been in the Divorce Court before."

"Divorce Court?" she said, puzzled, "are you giving evidence? Of course I know detectives do that sort of thing. I have read about it in the newspapers. It must be rather horrid, but you are such a clever detective—oh, by the way you never told me how you found me."

"It was a very simple matter," he said, relieved to change the subject, "van Heerden, by one of those curious lapses which the best of criminals make, left a message at the pawnbroker's which was written on the back of an account for pigeon food, sent to him from a Horsham tradesman. I knew he would not try to dispatch his message by the ordinary courses and I suspected all along that he had established a pigeon-post. The bill gave me all the information I wanted. It took us a long time to find the tradesman, but once we had discovered him he directed us to the farm. We took along a couple of local policemen and arrested Bridgers in the garage."

She shivered.

"It was horrible, wasn't it?" she said.

He nodded.

"It was rather dreadful, but it might have been very much worse," he added philosophically.

"But how wonderful of you to switch yourself from the crime of that enthralling character to a commonplace divorce suit."

"This isn't commonplace," he said, "it is rather a curious story."

"Do tell me." She made a place for him on the window-ledge and he sat down beside her.

"It is a story of a mistake and a blunder," he said. "The plaintiff, a very worthy young man, passably good looking, was a man of my profession, a detective engaged in protecting the interests of a young and beautiful girl."

"I suppose you have to say she's young and beautiful or the story wouldn't be interesting," she said.

"It is not necessary to lie in this case," he said, "she is certainly young and undoubtedly beautiful. She has the loveliest eyes——"

"Go on," she said hastily.

"The detective," he resumed, "hereinafter called the petitioner, desiring to protect the innocent maiden from the machinations of a fortune-hunting gentleman no longer with us, contracted as he thought a fraudulent marriage with this unfortunate girl, believing thereby he could choke off the villain who was pursuing her."

"But why did the unfortunate girl marry him, even fraudulently?"

"Because," said Beale, "the villain of the piece had drugged her and she didn't know what she was doing. After the marriage," he went on, "he discovered that so far from being illegal it was good in law and he had bound this wretched female."

"Please don't be rude," she said.

"He had bound this wretched female to him for life. Being a perfect gentleman, born of poor but American parents, he takes the first opportunity of freeing her."

"And himself," she murmured.

"As to the poor misguided lad," he said firmly, "you need feel no sympathy. He had behaved disgracefully."

"How?" she asked.

"Well, you see, he had already fallen in love with her and that made his offence all the greater. If you go red I cannot tell you this story, because it embarrasses me."

"I haven't gone red," she denied indignantly. "So what are you—what is he going to do?"

Beale shrugged his shoulders.

"He is going to work for a divorce."

"But why?" she demanded. "What has she done?"

He looked at her in astonishment.

"What do you mean?" he stammered.

"Well"—she shrugged her shoulders slightly and smiled in his face—"it seems to me that it is nothing to do with him. It is the wretched female who should sue for a divorce, not the handsome detective—do you feel faint?"

"No," he said hoarsely.

"Don't you agree with me?"

"I agree with you," said the incoherent Beale. "But suppose her guardian takes the necessary steps?"

She shook her head.

"The guardian can do nothing unless the wretched female instructs him," she said. "Does it occur to you that even the best of drugs wear off in time and that there is a possibility that the lady was not as unconscious of the ceremony as she pretends? Of course," she said hurriedly, "she did not realize that it had actually happened, and until she was told by Apollo from the Central Office—that's what you call Scotland Yard in New York, isn't it?—that the ceremony had actually occurred she was under the impression that it was a beautiful dream—when I say beautiful," she amended, in some hurry, "I mean not unpleasant."

"Then what am I to do?" said the helpless Beale.

"Wait till I divorce you," said Oliva, and turned her head hurriedly, so that Beale only kissed the tip of her ear.

THE END