Oliva Cresswell remembered nothing. She did not remember being thrust limply into a long narrow box, nor hearing Beale's voice, nor the click of the door that fastened him in Dr. van Heerden's bedroom. If she cried out, as she did, she had no recollection of the fact.
Carry her, box and all, to her flat. The door is open, whispered van Heerden to the two men who had made their lightning disappearance into the anatomical cases at the sound of Beale's knock.
What shall we do?
Wait till I come to you. Hurry!
They crossed the landing and passed through the open door of Oliva's flat and the doctor closed the door behind them and returned in time to release the savage Beale.
He watched him racing down the stairs, darted to the door of Oliva's rooms, opened it and went in. In ten seconds she had been lifted from her narrow prison and laid on her bed, the box had been returned to the place where it had stood in the doctor's study and the men had returned to join van Heerden in Oliva's darkened sitting-room.
Van Heerden had switched on the light in the girl's room and then noticed for the first time that one of her shoes was missing. Quickly he slipped off the remaining shoe.
You wait here, he told the men, "until you hear Beale return. Then make your escape. On your way down leave the shoe on the stairs. It will help to put our friend off the trail."
Half an hour after the discovery of the shoe on the stairs Beale went out accompanied by his visitors.
The doctor watched the dark figures disappear into the night from the window of his sitting-room and made his way back to the girl's flat. She was lying where he had left her, feeling dizzy and sick. Her eyes closed in a little grimace of distaste as he put on the light.
How does my little friend feel now? he asked coolly.
She made no reply.
Really, you must not sulk, he said chidingly, "and you must get used to being polite because you are going to see a great deal of me. You had better get up and put your coat on."
She noticed that he had a medicine glass in his hand, half-filled with a milky-white liquor.
Drink this, he said.
She pushed it away.
Come, drink it, he said, "you don't suppose I want to poison you, do you? I don't even want to drug you, otherwise it would have been simple to have given you a little more ether. Drink it. It will take that hazy feeling out of your head."
She took the glass with an unsteady hand and swallowed its contents. It was bitter and hot and burnt her throat, but its effects were magical. In three minutes her mind had cleared and when she sat up she could do so without her head swimming.
You will now put on your coat and hat, pack a few things that you want for a journey, and come along with me.
I shall do nothing of the sort, she said, "I advise you to go, Dr. van Heerden, before I inform the police of your outrageous conduct."
Put on your hat and coat, he repeated calmly, "and don't talk nonsense. You don't suppose that I have risked all that I have risked to let you go at this hour."
Dr. van Heerden, she said, "if you have any spark of decency or manhood you will leave me."
He laughed a little.
Now you are talking like a heroine of Lyceum drama, he said. "Any appeal you might make, Miss Cresswell, is a waste of time and a waste of breath. I shall have no hesitation in using violence of the most unpleasant character unless you do as I tell you."
His voice was quiet, but there was about him a convincing air of purpose.
Where are you going to take me? she asked.
I am going to take you to a place of safety. When I say safety, he added, "I mean safety for me. You yourself need fear nothing unless you act foolishly, in which case you have everything to fear. Disabuse your mind of one thought, Miss Cresswell," he said, "and that is that I am in love with you and that there is any quality or charm in your admirable person which would prevent my cutting your throat if it was necessary for my safety. I am not a brute. I will treat you decently, as well as any lady could wish to be treated, if you do not cross me, but I warn you that if in the street you call for help or attempt to escape you will never know what happened to you."
She stood at the end of her bed, one hand gripping the rail, her white teeth showing against the red lower lip.
Don't bite your lips, it does not stimulate thought, I can tell you that as a medical man, and I can also tell you that this is not the moment for you to consider plans for outwitting me. Get your coat and hat on.
His voice was now peremptory, and she obeyed. In a few minutes she was dressed ready for the street. He led the way out and holding her arm lightly they passed out into the street. He turned sharply to the left, the girl keeping in step by his side. To the casual observer, and few could observe them in the gloom of the ill-lit thoroughfares through which they passed, they were a couple on affectionate terms, but the arm locked in hers was the arm of a gaoler, and once when they stood waiting to cross busy Oxford Circus, and she had seen a policeman a few yards away and had cautiously tried to slip her arm from his, she found her wrist gripped with a hand of steel.
At the Marylebone Road end of Portland Place a car was waiting and the doctor opened the door and pushed her in, following immediately.
I had to keep the car some distance from Krooman Mansions or Beale would have spotted it immediately, he said in an easy conversational tone.
Where are you taking me? she asked.
To a highly desirable residence in the Thames Valley, he said, "in the days when I thought you might be wooed and wed, as the saying goes, I thought it might make an excellent place for a honeymoon." He felt her shrink from him.
Please don't be distressed, I am rather glad that matters have turned out as they have. I do not like women very much, and I should have been inexpressibly bored if I had to keep up the fiction of being in love with you.
What do you intend doing? she asked. "You cannot hope to escape from Mr. Beale. He will find me."
He chuckled.
As a sleuth-hound, Mr. Beale has his points, he said, "but they are not points which keep me awake at night. I have always suspected he was a detective, and, of course, it was he who planted the registered envelopes on poor old White--that was clever," he admitted handsomely, "but Beale, if you will excuse my hurting your feelings--and I know you are half in love with him----"
She felt her face go hot.
How dare you! she flamed.
Don't be silly, he begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances, the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who figure in divorce cases."
She did not reply. Inwardly she was boiling, and she recognized with a little feeling of dismay that it was not so much the indignity which he was offering her, as his undisguised contempt for the genius of Beale, which enraged her.
They had left the town and were spinning through the country when she spoke again.
Will you be kind enough to tell me what you intend doing?
He had fallen into a reverie and it was evidently a pleasant reverie, for he came back to the realities of life with an air of reluctance.
Eh? Oh, what am I going to do with you? Why, I am going to marry you.
Suppose I refuse?
You won't refuse. I am offering you the easiest way out. When you are married to me your danger is at an end. Until you marry me your hold on life is somewhat precarious.
But why do you insist upon this? she asked, bewildered, "If you don't love me, what is there in marriage for you? There are plenty of women who would be delighted to have you. Why should you want to marry a girl without any influence or position--a shop-girl, absolutely penniless?"
It's a whim of mine, he said lightly, "and it's a whim I mean to gratify."
Suppose I refuse at the last moment?
Then, he said significantly, "you will be sorry. I tell you, no harm is coming to you if you are sensible. If you are not sensible, imagine the worst that can happen to you, and that will be the least. I will treat you so that you will not think of your experience, let alone talk of it."
There was a cold malignity in his voice that made her shudder. For a moment, and a moment only, she was beaten down by the horrible hopelessness of her situation, then her natural courage, her indomitable, self-reliance overcame fear. If he expected an outburst of anger and incoherent reproach, or if he expected her to break down into hysterical supplication, he was disappointed. She had a firm grip upon herself, perfect command of voice and words.
I suppose you are one of those clever criminals one reads about, she said, "prepared for all emergencies, perfectly self-confident, capable and satisfied that there is nobody quite so clever as themselves."
Very likely, he smiled. "It is a form of egotism," he said quietly. "I read a book once about criminals. It was written by an Italian and he said that was the chief characteristic of them all."
Vanity? And they always do such clever things and such stupid things at the same time, and their beautiful plans are so full of absurd miscalculations, just as yours are.
Just as mine are, he said mockingly.
Just as yours are, she repeated; "you are so satisfied that because you are educated and you are a scientist, that you are ever so much more clever than all the rest of the world."
Go on, he said. "I like to hear you talking. Your analysis is nearly perfect and certainly there is a lot of truth in what you say."
She held down the surging anger which almost choked her and retained a calm level. Sooner or later she would find the joint in his harness.
I suppose you have everything ready?
My staff work is always good, he murmured, "marriage licence, parson, even the place where you will spend your solitary honeymoon after signing a few documents."
She turned toward him slowly. Against the window of the big limousine his head was faintly outlined and she imagined the smile which was on his face at that moment.
So that is it! she said. "I must sign a few documents saying that I married you of my own free will!"
No, madam, he said, "the circumstances under which you marry me require no justification and that doesn't worry me in the slightest."
What documents have I to sign? she asked.
You will discover in time, said he. "Here is the house, unless my eyesight has gone wrong."
The car turned from the road, seemed to plunge into a high hedge, though in reality, as the girl saw for a second as the lamps caught the stone gate-posts, it was the entrance to a drive, and presently came to a stop before a big rambling house. Van Heerden jumped down and assisted her to alight. The house was in darkness, but as they reached the door it was opened.
Go in, said van Heerden, and pushed her ahead.
She found herself in an old-fashioned hall, the walls panelled of oak, the floor made of closely mortised stone flags. She recognized the man who had admitted them as one of those she had seen in her flat that same night. He was a cadaverous man with high cheekbones and short, bristly black hair and a tiny black moustache.
I won't introduce you, said the doctor, "but you may call this man Gregory. It is not his name, but it is good enough."
The man smiled furtively and eyed her furtively, took up the candle and led the way to a room which opened off the hall at the farther end.
This is the dining-room, said van Heerden. "It is chiefly interesting to you as the place where the ceremony will be performed. Your room is immediately above. I am sorry I did not engage a maid for you, but I cannot afford to observe the proprieties or consider your reputation. The fact is, I know no woman I could trust to perform that duty, and you will have to look after yourself."
He led the way upstairs, unlocked a door and passed in. There was one window which was heavily curtained. He saw her glance and nodded.
You will find the windows barred, he said. "This was evidently the nursery and is admirably suited to my purpose. In addition, I might tell you that the house is a very old one and that it is impossible to walk about the room without the door creaking and, as I spend most of my time in the dining-room below, you will find it extremely difficult even to make preparations for escape without my being aware of the fact."
The room was comfortably furnished. A small fire was alight in the tiny grate and a table had been laid, on which were displayed sandwiches, a thermos flask and a small silver basket of confectionery.
There was a door by the big four-poster bed.
You may consider yourself fortunate in having the only room in the house with a bath-room attached, he said. "You English people are rather particular about that kind of thing."
And you German people aren't, she said coolly.
German? he laughed. "So you guessed that, did you?"
Guessed it?--it was her turn to laugh scornfully. "Isn't the fact self-evident? Who but a Hun----"
His face went a dull red.
That is a word you must not use to me, he said roughly--"hang your arrogance! Huns! We, who gave the world its kultur, who lead in every department of science, art and literature!"
She stared at him in amazement.
You are joking, of course, she said, forgetting her danger for the moment in face of this extraordinary phenomenon. "If you are a German, and I suppose you are, and an educated German at that, you don't for a moment imagine you gave the world anything. Why, the Germans have never been anything but exploiters of other men's brains."
From dull red, his face had gone white, his lip was trembling with passion and when he spoke he could scarcely control his voice.
We were of all people ordained by God to save the world through the German spirit.
So far he got when she burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It was so like all the caricatures of German character she had read or seen depicted. He looked at her, his face distorted with rage, and before she had realized what had happened he had raised his hand and struck her across the mouth.
She staggered back, speechless. To her had happened the most incredible thing in the world, more incredible than her abduction, more incredible than all the villainies known or suspected, in this man.
He stood there glowering at her, unrepentant, half-tempted, it seemed, to repeat the blow. He had struck a woman and was not overwhelmed by shame. All her views of men and things, all her conceptions of the codes which govern mankind in their dealings one with the other, crumbled away. If he had fallen on his knees and asked her pardon, if he had shown any contrition, any fear, any shame, she might have gone back to her old standards.
You swine cat! he said in German, "Herr Gott, but I will punish you if you laugh at me!"
She was staring at him in intense curiosity. Her lip was bleeding a little, the red mark of his fingers showed against her white face, but she seemed to have forgotten the pain or the shock of the actual blow and was wholly concerned in this new revelation.
A Hun, she said, but she seemed to be speaking to herself, "of course he's a Hun. They do that sort of thing, but I never believed it before."
He took a step toward her, but she did not flinch, and he turned and walked quickly from the room, locking the door behind him.
When Beale left Krooman Mansions with his two companions he had only the haziest idea as to where he should begin his search. Perhaps the personal interest he had in his client, an interest revealed by the momentary panic into which her disappearance had thrown this usually collected young man, clouded his better judgment.
A vague discomfort possessed him and he paused irresolutely at the corner of the street. There was a chance that she might still be concealed in the building, but a greater chance that if he followed one of the three plans which were rapidly forming in his mind he might save the girl from whatever danger threatened her.
You are perfectly sure you heard her voice?
Certain, replied Beale shortly, "just as I am sure that I smelt the ether."
She may have been using it for some other purpose. Women put these drugs to all sorts of weird purposes, like cleaning gloves, and----
That may be, interrupted Beale, "but I wasn't mistaken about her voice. I am not subject to illusions of that kind."
He whistled. A man who had been lurking in the shadow of a building on the opposite side of the road crossed to him.
Fenson, said Beale, "watch these flats. If you see a car drive up just go along and stand in front of the door. Don't let anybody enter that car or carry any bundle into that car until you are sure that Miss Cresswell is not one of the party or the bundle. If necessary you can pull a gun--I know it isn't done in law-abiding London," he smiled at Superintendent McNorton, "but I guess you've got to let me do a little law-breaking."
Go all the way, said the superintendent easily.
That will do, Fenson. You know Miss Cresswell?
Sure, sir, said the man, and melted back into the shadows.
Where are you going now? asked Kitson.
I am going to interview a gentleman who will probably give me a great deal of information about van Heerden's other residences.
Has he many? asked Kitson, in surprise.
Beale nodded.
He has been hiring buildings and houses for the past three months, he said quietly, "and he has been so clever that I will defy you to trace one of them. All his hiring has been done through various lawyers he has employed, and they are all taken in fictitious names."
Do you know any of them?
Not one, said Beale, with a baffled little laugh, "didn't I tell you he's mighty clever? I got track of two of them but they were the only two where the sale didn't go through."
What does he want houses for?
We shall learn one of these days, said Beale cryptically. "I can tell you something else, gentlemen, and this is more of a suspicion than a certainty, that there is not a crank scientist who has ever gone under through drink or crime in the whole of this country, aye, and America and France, too, that isn't working for him. And now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me----"
You don't want any assistance? asked the superintendent.
I guess not, said Beale, with a smile, "I guess I can manage the Herr Professor."
* * * * *
On the south side of the River Thames is a congested and thickly populated area lying between the Waterloo and the Blackfriars Roads. Here old houses, which are gauntly picturesque because of their age, stand cheek-by-jowl with great blocks of model dwellings, which make up in utility all that they lack in beauty. Such dwelling-places have a double advantage. Their rent is low and they are close to the centre of London. Few of the houses are occupied by one family, and indeed it is the exception that one family rents in its entirety so much as a floor.
In a basement room in one of those houses sat two men as unlike one another as it is possible to conceive. The room itself was strangely tidy and bare of anything but the necessary furniture. A camp bed was under the window in such a position as to give its occupant a view of the ankles of those people who trod the pavement of the little street.
A faded cretonne curtain hid an inner and probably a smaller room where the elder of the men slept. They sat on either side of a table, a kerosene lamp placed exactly in the centre supplying light for their various occupations.
The elder of the two was bent forward over a microscope, his big hands adjusting the focus screw. Presently he would break off his work of observation and jot down a few notes in crabbed German characters. His big head, his squat body, his long ungainly arms, his pale face with its little wisp of beard, would have been recognized by Oliva Cresswell, for this was Professor Heyler--"the Herr Professor," as Beale called him.
The man sitting opposite was cast in a different mould. He was tall, spare, almost aesthetic. The clean-shaven face, the well-moulded nose and chin hinted at a refinement which his shabby threadbare suit and his collarless shirt freakishly accentuated. Now and again he would raise his deep-set eyes from the book he was reading, survey the absorbed professor with a speculative glance and then return to his reading.
They had sat in silence for the greater part of an hour, when Beale's tap on the door brought the reader round with narrow eyes.
Expecting a visitor, professor? he asked in German.
Nein, nein, rambled the old man, "who shall visit me? Ah yes"--he tapped his fat forefinger--"I remember, the Fraeulein was to call."
He got up and, shuffling to the door, slipped back the bolt and turned it. His face fell when he saw Beale, and the man at the table rose.
Hope I am not disturbing you, said the detective. "I thought you lived alone."
He, too, spoke in the language which the professor understood best.
That is a friend of mine, said old Heyler uncomfortably, "we live together. I did not think you knew my address."
Introduce me, said the man at the table coolly.
The old professor looked dubiously from one to the other.
It is my friend, Herr Homo.
Herr Homo, repeated Beale, offering his hand, "my name is Beale."
Homo shot a keen glance at him.
A split! or my criminal instincts fail me, he said, pleasantly enough.
Split? repeated Beale, puzzled.
American I gather from your accent, said Mr. Homo; "pray sit down. 'Split' is the phrase employed by the criminal classes to describe a gentleman who in your country is known as a 'fly cop'!"
Oh, a detective, smiled Beale. "No, in the sense you mean I am not a detective. At any rate, I have not come on business."
So I gather, said the other, seating himself, "or you would have brought one of the 'busy fellows' with you. Here again you must pardon the slang but we call the detective the 'busy fellow' to distinguish him from the 'flattie,' who is the regular cop. Unless you should be under any misapprehension, Mr. Beale, it is my duty to tell you that I am a representative of the criminal classes, a fact which our learned friend," he nodded toward the distressed professor, "never ceases to deplore," and he smiled blandly.
They had dropped into English and the professor after waiting uncomfortably for the visitor to explain his business had dropped back to his work with a grunt.
I am Parson Homo and this is my _pied-a-terre_. We professional criminals must have somewhere to go when we are not in prison, you know.
The voice was that of an educated man, its modulation, the confidence and the perfect poise of the speaker suggested the college man.
So that you shall not be shocked by revelations I must tell you that I have just come out of prison. I am by way of being a professional burglar.
I am not easily shocked, said Beale.
He glanced at the professor.
I see, said Parson Homo, rising, "that I am _de trop_. Unfortunately I cannot go into the street without risking arrest. In this country, you know, there is a law which is called the Prevention of Crimes Act, which empowers the unemployed members of the constabulary who find time hanging on their hands to arrest known criminals on suspicion if they are seen out in questionable circumstances. And as all circumstances are questionable to the unimaginative 'flattie,' and his no less obtuse friend the 'split,' I will retire to the bedroom and stuff my ears with cotton-wool."
You needn't, smiled Beale, "I guess the professor hasn't many secrets from you."
Go on guessing, my ingenious friend, said the parson, smiling with his eyes, "my own secrets I am willing to reveal but--_adios!_"
He waved his hand and passed behind the cretonne curtain and the old man looked up from his instrument.
It is the Donovan Leichmann body that I search for, he said solemnly; "there was a case of sleeping-sickness at the docks, and the Herr Professor of the Tropical School so kindly let me have a little blood for testing."
Professor, said Beale, sitting down in the place which Parson Homo had vacated and leaning across the table, "are you still working for van Heerden?"
The old man rolled his big head from side to side in an agony of protest.
Of the learned doctor I do not want to speak, he said, "to me he has been most kind. Consider, Herr Peale, I was starving in this country which hates Germans and regard as a mad old fool and an ugly old devil, and none helped me until the learned doctor discovered me. I am a German, yes. Yet I have no nationality, being absorbed in the larger brotherhood of science. As for me I am indifferent whether the Kaiser or the Socialists live in Potsdam, but I am loyal, Herr Peale, to all who help me. To you, also," he said hastily, "for you have been most kind, and once when in foolishness I went into a room where I ought not to have been you saved me from the police." He shrugged his massive shoulders again. "I am grateful, but must I not also be grateful to the learned doctor?"
Tell me this, professor, said Beale, "where can I find the learned doctor to-night?"
At his so-well-known laboratory, where else? asked the professor.
Where else? repeated Beale.
The old man was silent.
It is forbidden that I should speak, he said; "the Herr Doctor is engaged in a great experiment which will bring him fortune. If I betray his secrets he may be ruined. Such ingratitude, Herr Peale!"
There was a silence, the old professor, obviously distressed and ill at ease, looking anxiously at the younger man.
Suppose I tell you that the Herr Doctor is engaged in a dangerous conspiracy, said Beale, "and that you yourself are running a considerable risk by assisting him?"
The big hands were outspread in despair.
The Herr Doctor has many enemies, mumbled Heyler. "I can tell you nothing, Herr Peale."
Tell me this, said Beale: "is there any place you know of where the doctor may have taken a lady--the young lady into whose room you went the night I found you?"
A young lady? The old man was obviously surprised. "No, no, Herr Peale, there is no place where a young lady could go. Ach! No!"
Well, said Beale, after a pause, "I guess I can do no more with you, professor." He glanced round at the cretonne recess: "I won't inconvenience you any longer, Mr. Homo."
The curtains were pushed aside and the aesthetic-looking man stepped out, the half-smile on his thin lips.
I fear you have had a disappointing visit, he said pleasantly, "and it is on the tip of your tongue to ask me if I can help you. I will save you the trouble of asking--I can't."
Beale laughed.
You are a bad thought-reader, he said. "I had no intention of asking you."
He nodded to the old man, and with another nod to his companion was turning when a rap came at the door. He saw the two men exchange glances and noted in the face of the professor a look of blank dismay. The knock was repeated impatiently.
Permit me, said Beale, and stepped to the door.
Wait, wait, stammered the professor, "if Mr. Peale will permit----"
He shuffled forward, but Beale had turned the latch and opened the door wide. Standing in the entrance was a girl whom he had no difficulty in recognizing as Hilda Glaum, sometime desk companion of Oliva Cresswell. His back was to the light and she did not recognize him.
Why did you not open more quickly? she asked in German, and swung the heavy bag she carried into the room, "every moment I thought I should be intercepted. Here is the bag. It will be called for to-morrow----"
It was then that she saw Beale for the first time and her face went white.
Who--who are you? she asked; then quickly, "I know you. You are the man Beale. The drunken man----"
She looked from him to the bag at her feet and to him again, then before he could divine her intention she had stooped and grasped the handle of the bag. Instantly all his attention was riveted upon that leather case and its secret. His hand shot out and gripped her arm, but she wrenched herself free. In doing so the bag was carried by the momentum of its release and was driven heavily against the wall. He heard a shivering crash as though a hundred little glasses had broken simultaneously.
Before he could reach the bag she snatched it up, leapt through the open door and slammed it to behind her. His hand was on the latch----
Put 'em up, Mr. Beale, put 'em up, said a voice behind him. "Right above your head, Mr. Beale, where we can see them."
He turned slowly, his hands rising mechanically to face Parson Homo, who still sat at the table, but he had discarded his Greek book and was handling a business-like revolver, the muzzle of which covered the detective.
Smells rotten, doesn't it? said Homo pleasantly.
Beale, too, had sniffed the musty odour, and knew that it came from the bag the girl had wrenched from his grasp. It was the sickly scent of the Green Rust!
With her elbows resting on the broad window-ledge and her cheeks against the cold steel bars which covered the window, Oliva Cresswell watched the mists slowly dissipate in the gentle warmth of the morning sun. She had spent the night dozing in a rocking-chair and at the first light of day she had bathed and redressed ready for any emergency. She had not heard any sound during the night and she guessed that van Heerden had returned to London.
The room in which she was imprisoned was on the first floor at the back of the house and the view she had of the grounds was restricted to a glimpse between two big lilac bushes which were planted almost on a level with her room.
The house had been built on the slope of a gentle rise so that you might walk from the first-floor window on to the grassy lawn at the back of the house but for two important obstacles, the first being represented by the bars which protected the window and the second by a deep area, concrete-lined, which formed a trench too wide to jump.
She could see, however, that the grounds were extensive. The high wall which, apparently, separated the garden from the road was a hundred yards away. She knew it must be the road because of a little brown gate which from time to time she saw between the swaying bushes. She turned wearily from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. She was not afraid--irritated would be a better word to describe her emotion. She was mystified, too, and that was an added irritation.
Why should this man, van Heerden, who admittedly did not love her, who indeed loved her so little that he could strike her and show no signs of remorse--why did this man want to marry her? If he wanted to marry her, why did he kidnap her?
There was another question, too, which she had debated that night. Why did his reference to the American detective, Beale, so greatly embarrass her?
She had reached the point where even such tremendous subjects of debate had become less interesting than the answer to that question which was furnished, when a knock came to her door and a gruff voice said:
Breakfast!
She unlocked the door and pulled it open. The man called Gregory was standing on the landing. He jerked his thumb to the room opposite.
You can use both these rooms, he said, "but you can't come downstairs. I have put your breakfast in there."
She followed the thumb across the landing and found herself in a plainly furnished sitting-room. The table had been laid with a respectable breakfast, and until she had appeased her healthy young appetite she took very little stock of her surroundings.
The man came up in half an hour to clear away the table.
Will you be kind enough to tell me where I am? asked Oliva.
I am not going to tell you anything, said Gregory.
I suppose you know that by detaining me here you are committing a very serious crime?
Tell it to the doctor, said the man, with a queer little smile.
She followed him out to the landing. She wanted to see what sort of guard was kept and what possibilities there were of escape. Somehow it seemed easier to make a reconnaissance now under his very eyes than it had been in the night, when in every shadow had lurked a menace.
She did not follow him far, however. He put down the tray at the head of the stairs and reaching out both his hands drew two sliding doors from the wall and snapped them in her face. She heard the click of a door and knew that any chance of escape from this direction was hopeless. The doors had slid noiselessly on their oiled runners and had formed for her a little lobby of the landing. She guessed that the sliding doors had been closed after van Heerden's departure. She had exhausted all the possibilities of her bedroom and now began an inspection of the other.
Like its fellow, the windows were barred. There was a bookshelf, crowded with old volumes, mostly on matters ecclesiastical or theological. She looked at it thoughtfully.
Now, if I were clever like Mr. Beale, she said aloud, "I could deduce quite a lot from this room."
A distant church bell began to clang and she realized with a start that the day was Sunday. She looked at her watch and was amazed to see it was nearly eleven. She must have slept longer than she had thought.
This window afforded her no better view than did that of the bedroom, except that she could see the gate more plainly and what looked to be the end of a low-roofed brick building which had been erected against the wall. She craned her neck, looking left and right, but the bushes had been carefully planted to give the previous occupants of these two rooms greater privacy.
Presently the bell stopped and she addressed herself again to an examination of the room. In an old-fashioned sloping desk she found a few sheets of paper, a pen and a bottle half-filled with thick ink. There were also two telegraph forms, and these gave her an idea. She went back to the table in the middle of the room. With paper before her she began to note the contents of the apartment.
I am trying to be Bealish, she admitted.
She might also have confessed that she was trying to keep her mind off her possibly perilous position and that though she was not afraid she had a fear of fear.
A case full of very dull good books. That means that the person who lived here before was very serious-minded.
She walked over and examined the titles, pulled out a few books and looked at their title pages. They all bore the same name, "L. T. B. Stringer." She uttered an exclamation. Wasn't there some directory of clergymen's names?--she was sure this was a clergyman, nobody else would have a library of such weighty volumes.
Her fingers ran along the shelves and presently she found what she wanted--Crocker's Clergy List of 1879. She opened the book and presently found, "Stringer, Laurence Thomas Benjamin, Vicar of Upper Staines, Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines."
Her eyes sparkled. Instinctively she knew that she had located her prison. Van Heerden had certainly hired the house furnished, probably from the clergyman or his widow. She began to search the room with feverish haste. Near the window was a cupboard built out. She opened it and found that it was a small service lift, apparently communicating with the kitchen. In a corner of the room was an invalid chair on wheels.
She sat down at the table and reconstructed the character of its occupant. She saw an invalid clergyman who had lived permanently in this part of the house. He was probably wheeled from his bedroom to his sitting-room, and in this cheerless chamber had spent the last years of his life. And this place was Deans Folly? She took up the telegraph form and after a few minutes' deliberation wrote:
To Beale, Krooman Mansions.
She scratched that out, remembering that he had a telegraphic address and substituted:
Belocity, London. She thought a moment, then wrote: "Am imprisoned at Deans Folly, Upper Reach Village, near Staines. Oliva." That looked too bold, and she added "Cresswell."
She took a florin from her bag and wrapped it up in the telegraph form. She had no exact idea as to how she should get the message sent to the telegraph office, and it was Sunday, when all telegraph offices would be closed. Nor was there any immediate prospect of her finding a messenger. She supposed that tradesmen came to the house and that the kitchen door was somewhere under her window, but tradesmen do not call on Sundays. She held the little package irresolutely in her hand. She must take her chance to-day. To-morrow would be Monday and it was certain somebody would call.
With this assurance she tucked the message into her blouse. She was in no mood to continue her inspection of the room, and it was only because in looking again from the window she pulled it from its hook that she saw the strange-looking instrument which hung between the window and the service lift. She picked it up, a dusty-looking thing. It consisted of a short vulcanite handle, from which extended two flat steel supports, terminating in vulcanite ear-plates. The handle was connected by a green cord with a plug in the wall.
Oliva recognized it. It was an electrophone. One of those instruments by which stay-at-home people can listen to an opera, a theatrical entertainment or--a sermon. Of course it was a church. It was a very common practice for invalids to be connected up with their favourite pulpit, and doubtless the Rev. Mr. Stringer had derived considerable comfort from this invention.
She dusted the receiver and put them to her ears. She heard nothing. Beneath the plug was a little switch. She turned this over and instantly her ears were filled with a strange hollow sound--the sound which a bad gramophone record makes.
Then she realized that she was listening to a congregation singing. This ceased after awhile and she heard a cough, so surprisingly near and loud that she started. Of course, the transmitter would be in the pulpit, she thought. Then a voice spoke, clear and distinct, yet with that drawl which is the peculiar property of ministers of the Established Church. She smiled as the first words came to her.
I publish the banns of marriage between Henry Colebrook, and Jane Maria Smith both of this parish. This is the second time of asking. A pause, then: "Also between Henry Victor Vanden and Oliva Cresswell Predeaux, both of this parish. This is the third time of asking. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it."
She dropped the instrument with a crash and stood staring down at it. She had been listening to the publication of her own wedding-notice.
Vanden was van Heerden. "Oliva Cresswell Predeaux" was herself. The strangeness of the names meant nothing. She guessed rather than knew that the false name would not be any insuperable bar to the ceremony. She must get away. For the first time she had a horrible sense of being trapped, and for a few seconds she must have lost her head, for she tugged at the iron bars, dashed wildly out and hammered at the sliding door. Presently her reason took charge. She heard the heavy step of Gregory on the stairs and recovered her calm by the time he had unlocked the bar and pulled the doors apart.
What do you want? he asked.
I want you to let me out of here.
Oh, is that all? he said sarcastically, and for the second time that day slammed the door in her face.
She waited until he was out of hearing, then she went back noiselessly to the sitting-room. She pushed open the door of the service lift and tested the ropes. There were two, one which supported the lift and one by which it was hauled up, and she gathered that these with the lift itself formed an endless chain.
Gripping both ropes firmly she crept into the confined space of the cupboard and let herself down hand over hand. She had about twelve feet to descend before she reached the kitchen entrance of the elevator. She squeezed through the narrow opening and found herself in a stone-flagged kitchen. It was empty. A small fire glowed in the grate. Her own tray with all the crockery unwashed was on the dresser, and there were the remnants of a meal at one end of the plain table. She tiptoed across the kitchen to the door. It was bolted top and bottom and locked. Fortunately the key was in the lock, and in two minutes she was outside in a small courtyard beneath the level of the ground.
One end of the courtyard led past another window, and that she could not risk. To her right was a flight of stone steps, and that was obviously the safer way. She found herself in a little park which fortunately for her was plentifully sprinkled with clumps of rhododendrons, and she crept from bush to bush, taking care to keep out of sight of the house. She had the telegram and the money in her hand, and her first object was to get this outside. It took her twenty minutes to reach the wall. It was too high to scale and there was no sign of a ladder. The only way out was the little brown door she had seen from her bedroom window, and cautiously she made her way back, flitting from bush to bush until she came to the place where a clear view of the door and the building to its left could be obtained.
The low-roofed shed she had seen was much longer than she had expected and evidently had recently been built. Its black face was punctured at intervals with square windows, and a roughly painted door to the left of the brown garden gate was the only entrance she could see. She looked for a key but without hope of finding one. She must take her chance, she thought, and a quick run brought her from the cover of the bushes to the brown portal which stood between her and liberty.
With trembling hands she slid back the bolts and turned the handle. Her heart leapt as it gave a little. Evidently it had not been used for years and she found it was only held fast by the gravel which had accumulated beneath it.
Eagerly she scraped the gravel aside with her foot and her hand was on the knob when she heard a muffled voice behind her. She turned and then with a gasp of horror fell back. Standing in the doorway of the shed was a thing which was neither man nor beast. It was covered in a wrap which had once been white but was now dappled with green. The face and head were covered with rubber, two green staring eyes surveyed her, and a great snout-like nose was uplifted as in amazement. She was paralysed for a moment. For the beastliness of the figure was appalling.
Then realizing that it was merely a man whose face was hidden by a hideous mask, she sprang again for the door, but a hand gripped her arm and pulled her back. She heard a cheerful whistle from the road without and remembering the package in her hand she flung it high over the wall and heard its soft thud, and the whistle stop.
Then as the hideous figure slipped his arm about her and pressed a musty hand over her mouth she fainted.
Held up by a gunman? asked James Kitson incredulously, "why, what do you mean?"
It doesn't sound right, does it? smiled Beale, "especially after McNorton telling us the other day that there was no such thing as a gunman in England. Do you remember his long dissertation on the law-abiding criminals of this little old country?" he laughed.
But a gunman, protested Mr. Kitson--"by the way, have you had breakfast?"
Hours ago, replied Beale, "but don't let me interrupt you."
Mr. James Kitson pulled his chair to the table and unfolded his napkin. It was almost at this hour that Oliva Cresswell had performed a similar act.
You are not interrupting me, said Kitson, "go on."
Beale was frowning down at deserted Piccadilly which Mr. Kitson's palatial suite at the Ritz-Carlton overlooked.
Eh? he said absently, "oh yes, the gunman--a sure enough gunman."
He related in a few words his experience of the previous night.
This man Homo, said Kitson, "is he one of the gang?"
Beale shook his head.
I don't think so. He may be one of van Heerden's ambassadors.
Ambassadors?
I will explain van Heerden's game one of these days and you will understand what I mean, said Beale. "No, I don't think that Parson Homo is being any more than a gentle knight succouring a distressed lady, whether for love of the lady, out of respect for the professor or from a general sense of antagonism to all detectives, I can only speculate. Anyway, he held me until the lady was out of hearing and presumably out of sight. And then there was no need for me to go. I just sat down and talked, and a more amiable and cultured gentleman it would be impossible to meet."
Kitson looked at his companion through narrowed lids.
Why, that's not like you, Beale, he said. "I thought you were too hot on the scent to waste time."
So I am, said the other, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, "that's just what I am." He turned suddenly to the older man. "Mr. Kitson, I've got to know a little more about John Millinborn's will than I know at present."
The lawyer looked up, fixed his glasses and regarded the younger man with a troubled look.
I'm sorry to jump in on you like this, but I'm rattled. I don't understand much about the English law though I know that marriages aren't as easy to make here in London as they are in our country. But here as everywhere else it is fairly difficult to force a girl into marriage against her will, and the marriage of course is not good in law.
He sat down on the arm of a couch, dangling his hat between his legs, and ran his fingers through his hair with a nervous little laugh.
Here I'm telling you all that I came to ask you.
Have a cup of tea, said Kitson, with a smile, "everybody in England rushes to tea and I hope I shall get you in the habit."
Beale shook his head.
You are right about the marriage, Kitson went on, "but I'll give you the law on the subject. A marriage can only be solemnized if due notice is given by the parties who must be resident in the district where it is to take place--three weeks is the period of notice."
Is there no other way?
Yes. By paying special fees and offering a good and sufficient reason a faculty can be secured from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or rather from his officials, authorizing a marriage without notice. It is called a special licence, and the marriage may occur at any hour and at any place.
Is there a register of applications? asked Beale quickly.
I've thought of that, nodded the lawyer, "yes, I'm keeping that side under observation. It is difficult because officialdom isn't as obliging as it might be. My own view is that van Heerden will be married in the ordinary way, that is to say by giving notice. To secure his special licence he would be obliged to give his own name and be vouched for; he can be married in the ordinary way even if he gives a false name, which in all probability he will."
Would the marriage be legal if it was in a false name?
Absolutely. In English law you may commit an offence by marrying in a wrong name, but it would not invalidate the marriage.
Stanford Beale sat studying the pattern of the carpet.
Is there any chance of two special licences being issued to marry the same girl? he asked.
None--why do you ask?
Beale did not reply immediately.
Something Homo said last night when I told him frankly that I was searching for Miss Cresswell. 'Oh,' said he, 'that's the lady that's marrying the doctor.' He wouldn't tell me more. But he gave me an idea to make sure that no special licence is issued to van Heerden. I shall apply for one myself.
The lawyer stared at him.
To marry the girl? he gasped. "But----"
Stanford Beale laughed a little bitterly.
"Say, don't get up in the air, Mr. Kitson--I'm only thinking of Miss Cresswell. A special licence in my name would stop one of van Heerden's paths to easy money. Tell me, and this is what I came to ask you, under Millinborn's will, does the husband benefit directly by the marriage, or is he dependent upon what his wife gives him?' He benefits directly,"" said Kitson after a pause, ""on his marriage he receives exactly one-half of the girl's fortune. That was Millinborn's idea. 'Make the husband independent,' he said, 'do not put him in the humiliating position of dependence on his wife's generosity, and there will be a chance of happiness for them both.'""
"I see--of course, van Heerden knows that. He has only to produce a marriage certificate to scoop in two and a half million dollars--that is half a million in English money. This is the secret of it all. He wants money immediately, and under the terms of the will----?
He gets it, said Kitson. "If he came to me to-morrow with proof of his marriage, even if I knew that he had coerced the girl into marriage, I must give him his share--van Heerden was pretty thorough when he put my dying friend through his examination." His face hardened. "Heavens, I'd give every penny I had in the world to bring that fiend to the gallows, Beale!"
His voice shook, and rising abruptly he walked to the window. Presently he turned. "I think there is something in your idea. Get the licence."
I will--and marry her, said Beale quickly.
Marry her--I don't quite understand you?
For the first time there was suspicion in his voice.
Mr. Kitson, I'm going to put all my cards on the table, said Beale quietly, "will you sit down a moment? There are certain facts which we cannot ignore. Fact one is that Oliva Cresswell is in the hands of a man who is absolutely unscrupulous, but has no other object in view than marriage. Her beauty, her charm, all the attractive qualities which appeal to most men and to all brutes have no appeal for him--to him she is just a money proposition. If he can't marry her, she has no further interest for him."
I see that, agreed the lawyer, "but----"
Wait, please. If we knew where she was we could stop the marriage and indict van Heerden--but I've an idea that we shan't locate her until it is too late or nearly too late. I can't go hunting with a pack of policemen. I must play a lone hand, or nearly a lone hand. When I find her I must be in a position to marry her without losing a moment.
You mean to marry her to foil van Heerden, and after--to dissolve the marriage? asked the lawyer, shaking his head. "I don't like that solution, Beale--I tell you frankly, I don't like it. You're a good man and I have every faith in you, but if I consented, even though I were confident that you would play fair, which I am, I should feel that I had betrayed John Millinborn's trust. It isn't because it is you, my son," he said kindly enough, "but if you were the Archangel Gabriel I'd kick at that plan. Marriage is a difficult business to get out of once you are in it, especially in this country."
Beale did not interrupt the older man.
Right, and now if you've finished I'll tell you my scheme, he said, "as I see it there's only a ghost of a chance of our saving this girl from marriage. I've done my best and we--McNorton and I--have taken all the facts before a judge this morning. We got a special interview with the idea of securing a warrant for van Heerden's arrest. But there is no evidence to convict him on any single charge. We cannot connect him with the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, and although I pointed out that van Heerden admits that he knows where the girl is, the judge said, fairly I thought, that there was no law which compelled a man to divulge the address of his fiancee to one who was a possible rival. The girl is of an age when she can do as she wishes, and as I understand the matter you have no legal status as a guardian."
None, said James Kitson, "that is our weak point. I am merely the custodian of her money. Officially I am supposed to be ignorant of the fact that Oliva Cresswell is Oliva Predeaux, the heiress."
Therefore our hands are tied, concluded Beale quietly. "Don't you see that my plan is the only one--but I haven't told you what it is. There's a man, a criminal, this Parson Homo who can help; I am satisfied that he does not know where the girl is--but he'll help for a consideration. As a matter of fact, he was pulled again. I am seeing him this afternoon."
Mr. Kitson frowned.
The gunman--how can he help you?
I will tell you. This man, as I say, is known to the police as Parson Homo. Apparently he is an unfrocked priest, one who has gone under. He still preserves the resemblance to a gentleman--he spoke slowly and deliberately; "in decent clothes he would look like a parson. I propose that he shall marry me to Miss Cresswell. The marriage will be a fake, but neither the girl nor van Heerden will know this. If my surmise is right, when van Heerden finds she is married he will take no further steps--except, perhaps," he smiled, "to make her a widow. Sooner or later we are bound to get him under lock and key, and then we can tell Miss Cresswell the truth."
In other words, you intend breaking the law and committing a serious offence, said Kitson, shaking his head. "I can't be a party to that--besides, she may not marry you."
I see that danger--van Heerden is a mighty clever fellow. He may be married before I trace them.
You say that Homo doesn't know about the girl, what does he know?
He has heard of van Heerden. He has heard probably from the girl Hilda Glaum that van Heerden is getting married--the underworld do not get their news out of special editions--he probably knows too that van Heerden is engaged in some swindle which is outside the parson's line of business.
Will he help you?
Sure, Beale said with quiet confidence, "the man is broke and desperate. The police watch him like a cat, and would get him sooner or later. McNorton told me that much. I have offered him passage to Australia and L500, and he is ready to jump at it."
You have explained the scheme?
I had to, confessed Beale, "there was no time to be lost. To my surprise he didn't like it. It appears that even a double-dyed crook has scruples, and even when I told him the whole of my plan he still didn't like it, but eventually agreed. He has gone to Whitechapel to get the necessary kit. I am putting him up in my flat. Of course, it may not be necessary," he went on, "but somehow I think it will be."
Kitson spread out his hands in despair.
I shall have to consent, he said, "the whole thing was a mistake from the beginning. I trust you, Stanford," he went on, looking the other in the eye, "you have no feeling beyond an ordinary professional interest in this young lady?"
Beale dropped his eyes.
If I said that, Mr. Kitson, I should be telling a lie, he said quietly. "I have a very deep interest in Miss Cresswell, but that is not going to make any difference to me and she will never know."
He left soon after this and went back to his rooms. At four o'clock he received a visitor. Parson Homo, cleanly shaved and attired in a well-fitting black coat and white choker, seemed more real to the detective than the Parson Homo he had met on the previous night.
You look the part all right, said Beale.
I suppose I do, said the other shortly; "what am I to do next?"
You stay here. I have made up a bed for you in my study, said Beale.
I would like to know a little more of this before I go any further, Homo said, "there are many reasons why I want information."
I have told you the story, said Beale patiently, "and I am going to say right here that I do not intend telling you any more. You carry this thing through and I'll pay you what I agreed. Nobody will be injured by your deception, that I promise you."
That doesn't worry me so much, said the other coolly, "as----"
There came a knock at the door, an agitated hurried knock, and Beale immediately answered it. It was McNorton, and from force of habit Parson Homo drew back into the shadows.
All right, Parson, said McNorton, "I knew you were here. What do you make of this?"
He turned to Beale and laid on the table a piece of paper which had been badly crumpled and which he now smoothed out. It was the top half of a telegraph form, the lower half had been torn away.
'To Belocity, London,' Beale read aloud.
That's you, interrupted McNorton, and the other nodded.
'To Belocity, London,' he read slowly. "'Am imprisoned at Deans----'"
At this point the remainder of the message had been torn off.
Where is the rest? said Beale.
That's the lot, replied McNorton grimly. "It's the only information you will get from this source for twenty-four hours."
But I don't understand, it is undoubtedly Miss Cresswell's handwriting.
And 'Belocity' is as undoubtedly your telegraphic address. This paper, he went on, "was taken from a drunken tramp--'hobo' you call 'em, don't you?"
Where?
At Kingston-on-Thames, said McNorton--"the man was picked up in the street, fighting drunk, and taken to the police station, where he developed delirium tremens. Apparently he has been on the jag all the week, and to-day's booze finished him off. The local inspector in searching him found this piece of paper in his pocket and connected it with the disappearance of Miss Cresswell, the matter being fresh in his mind, as only this morning we had circulated a new description throughout the home counties. He got me on the 'phone and sent a constable up to town with the paper this afternoon."
H'm, said Beale, biting his lips thoughtfully, "she evidently gave the man the telegram, telling him to dispatch it. She probably gave him money, too, which was the explanation of his final drunk."
I don't think that is the case, said McNorton, "he had one lucid moment at the station when he was cross-examined as to where he got the money to get drunk, and he affirmed that he found it wrapped up in a piece of paper. That sounds true to me. She either dropped it from a car or threw it from a house."
Is the man very ill?
Pretty bad, said the other, "you will get nothing out of him before the morning. The doctors had to dope him to get him quiet, and he will be some time before he is right."
He looked up at the other occupant of the room.
Well, Parson, you are helping Mr. Beale, I understand?
Yes, said the other easily.
Returning to your old profession, I see, said McNorton.
Parson Homo drew himself up a little stiffly.
If you have anything against me you can pull me for it, he said insolently: "that's your business. As to the profession I followed before I started on that career of crime which brought me into contact with the crude representatives of what is amusingly called 'the law,' is entirely my affair."
Don't get your wool off, Parson, said the other good-humouredly. "You have lost your sense of humour."
That's where you are wrong, said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my sense of decency."
McNorton turned to the other.
What are you going to do? he asked.
'I am imprisoned at Deans,' repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in this country?"
There are a dozen of them, replied the police chief: "there's Deansgate in Manchester, Deanston in Perth, Deansboro', Deans Abbey--I've been looking them up, there is a whole crowd of them."
Are there any 'Deans' near Kingston?
None, replied the other.
Then it is obviously the name of a house, said Beale. "I have noticed that in England you are in the habit of naming rather than numbering your houses, especially in the suburbs." He looked across to Parson Homo, "Can you help?"
The man shook his head.
If I were a vulgar burglar I might assist you, he said, "but my branch of the profession does not take me to the suburbs."
We will get a Kingston Directory and go through it, said McNorton; "we have one on the file at Scotland Yard. If----"
Beale suddenly raised his hand to enjoin silence: he had heard a familiar step in the corridor outside.
That's van Heerden, he said in a low voice, "he has been out all the morning."
Has he been shadowed? asked McNorton in the same tone.
My man lost him, he said.
He tiptoed along the passage and stood listening behind the door. Presently he heard the doctor's door close and came back.
I have had the best sleuth in America trailing him, he said, "and he has slipped him every time."
Anyway, said McNorton, "this telegram disposes of the idea that she has gone to Liverpool. It also settles the question as to whether she went of her own free will. If his name were on that telegram," he said thoughtfully, "I would take a risk and pull him in."
I will give you something bigger to pull him for, Beale said, "once I have placed Miss Cresswell in safety."
The Green Rust? smiled the police chief.
The Green Rust, said Beale, but he did not smile, "that's van Heerden's big game. The abduction of Miss Cresswell is merely a means to an end. He wants her money and may want it very badly. The more urgent is his need the sooner that marriage takes place."
But there is no clergyman in England who would marry them--it was Homo who interrupted. "My dear friend, that sort of thing is not done except in story books. If the woman refuses her consent the marriage cannot possibly occur. As I understand, the lady is not likely to be cowed."
That is what I am afraid of, said Beale, "she is all pluck----"
He stopped, for he had heard the doctor's door close. In three strides he had crossed the hallway and was in the corridor, confronting his suave neighbour. Dr. van Heerden, carefully attired, was pulling on his gloves and smiled into the stern face of his rival.
Well, he asked pleasantly, "any news of Miss Cresswell?"
If I had any news of Miss Cresswell you would not be here, said Beale.
But how interesting, drawled the doctor. "Where should I be?"
You would be under lock and key, my friend, said Beale.
The doctor threw back his head and laughed softly.
What a lover! he said, "and how reluctant to accept his dismissal! It may ease your mind to know that Miss Cresswell, whom I hope very soon to call Mrs. van Heerden, is perfectly happy, and is very annoyed at your persistence. I had a telegram from her this morning, begging me to come to Liverpool at the earliest opportunity."
That's a lie, said Beale quietly, "but one lie more or less, I suppose, doesn't count."
A thoroughly immoral view to take, said the doctor with much severity, "but I see there is nothing to be gained by arguing with you, and I can only make one request."
Beale said nothing but stood waiting.
It is this, said the doctor, choosing his words with great care: "that you call off the gentleman who has been dogging my footsteps to-day. It was amusing at first but now it is becoming annoying. Some of my patients have complained of this man watching their houses."
You've not seen a patient to-day, van Heerden, said Beale, "and, anyway, I guess you had better get used to being shadowed. It isn't your first experience."
The doctor looked at him under lowered lids and smiled again.
I could save your man a great deal of trouble, he said, "and myself considerable exertion by giving him a list of the places where I intend calling."
He will find that out for himself, said Beale.
I wish him greater success than he has had, replied the other, and passed on, descending the stairs slowly.
Beale went back to his flat, passed to his bedroom and looked down into the street. He made a signal to a man at the corner and received an almost imperceptible answer. Then he returned to the two men.
This fellow is too clever for us, I am afraid, and London with its tubes, its underground stations and taxi-cabs is a pretty difficult proposition.
I suppose your man lost him in the tube, said McNorton.
There are two ways down, the elevator and the stairs, and it is mighty difficult to follow a man unless you know which way he is going.
But you were interrupted at an interesting moment. What are you going to tell us about the Green Rust?
I can only tell you this, said Beale, "that the Green Rust is the greatest conspiracy against the civilized world that has ever been hatched."
He looked sharply at Homo.
Don't look at me, said the Parson, "I know nothing about it, unless----" He stopped and frowned. "The Green Rust," he repeated, "is that old man Heyler's secret?"
He's in it, said Beale shortly.
Is it a swindle of some kind? asked the Parson curiously. "It never struck me that Heyler was that kind of man."
There is no swindle in it so far as Heyler's concerned, said Beale, "it is something bigger than a swindle."
A telephone bell rang and he took up the receiver and listened, only interjecting a query or two. Then he hung up the instrument.
It is as I thought, he said: "the doctor's slipped again. Had a car waiting for him in Oxford Street and when he saw there were no taxi-cabs about, jumped in and was driven eastward."
Did you get the number of the car? asked McNorton.
Beale smiled.
That's not much use, he said, "he's probably got two or three number-plates."
He looked at his watch.
I'll go along to Kingston, he said.
I shan't be able to come with you, said McNorton, "I have a meeting with the commissioner at five."
Before you go, remarked Beale, "you might put your signature to this declaration of my _bona fides_."
He laid on the table a blue foolscap blank.
What's this? asked the surprised McNorton, "an application for a special licence--are you going to be married?"
I hope so, said the other cautiously.
You don't seem very cheerful about it. I presume you want me to testify to the urgency of the case. I am probably perjuring myself. He signed his name with a flourish. "When are you getting the licence and what's the hurry?"
I am getting the licence to-morrow, said Beale.
And the lady's name is----?
I thought you had noticed it, smiled the other, deftly blotting and folding the form.
Not Miss Cresswell? demanded the police chief in surprise.
Miss Cresswell it is.
But I thought----
There are circumstances which may be brought to your official notice, McNorton, said the detective, "for the present it is necessary to keep my plan a secret."
Has it anything to do with the Green Rust? asked the other jokingly.
A great deal to do with the Green Rust.
Well, I'll get along, said McNorton. "I will telephone the Kingston police to give you all the assistance possible, but I am afraid you will learn nothing from the tramp till the morning, and perhaps not then."
He took his leave soon after.
Now, Homo, it is up to you and me, said Beale. "You will have to keep close to me after to-morrow. Make yourself at home here until I come back."
One moment, said Homo, as Beale rose and gathered up his hat and gloves to depart. "Before you go I want you to understand clearly that I am taking on this job because it offers me a chance that I haven't had since I fell from grace, if you will excuse the _cliche_."
That I understand, said Beale.
I may be doing you a very bad turn.
I'll take that risk, said Beale.
On your own head be it, said Homo, his hard face creased in a fleeting smile.
Beale's car was waiting, but his departure was unexpectedly delayed. As he passed down the stairs into the vestibule he saw a stranger standing near the door reading the enamelled name-plates affixed to the wall. Something in his appearance arrested Beale. The man was well dressed in the sense that his clothes were new and well cut, but the pattern of the cloth, no less than the startling yellowness of the boots and that unmistakable sign-manual of the foreigner, the shape and colour of the cravat, stamped him as being neither American nor British.
Can I be of any assistance? asked Beale. "Are you looking for somebody?"
The visitor turned a pink face to him.
You are very good, he said with the faint trace of an accent. "I understand that Doctor van Heerden lives here?"
Yes, he lives here, said Beale, "but I am afraid he is not at home."
He thought it might be a patient or a summons to a patient.
Not at home? The man's face fell. "But how unfortunate! Could you tell me where I can find him, my business is immediate and I have come a long way."
From Germany, guessed Beale. The mail train was due at Charing Cross half an hour before.
I am a friend of Doctor van Heerden and possibly I can assist you. Is the business very important? Does it concern, he hesitated, "the Green Rust?"
He spoke the last sentence in German and the man started and looked at him with mingled suspicion and uncertainty.
It is a matter of the greatest importance, he repeated, "it is of vital importance."
He spoke in German.
About the Green Rust? asked Beale, in the same language.
I do not know anything of the Green Rust, said the man hurriedly. "I am merely the bearer of a communication which is of the greatest importance." He repeated the words--"the greatest importance."
If you give me the letter, said Beale, "I will see that it is sent on to him," and he held out his hand with the assurance of one who shared the dearest secrets of the doctor. The stranger's hand wandered to his breast pocket, but came back empty.
No, it must be given--I must see the doctor himself, he said. "He does not expect me and I will wait."
Beale thought quickly.
Well, perhaps you will come upstairs to my flat and wait, he said genially, and led the way, and the man, still showing evidence of uneasiness, was ushered into his room, where the sight of the Rev. Parson Homo tended to reassure him.
Would he have tea? He would not have tea. Would he take coffee? He would not take coffee. A glass of wine perhaps? No, he did not drink wine nor beer, nor would he take any refreshment whatever.
My man, thought the desperate Beale, "I either chloroform you or hit you on the head with the poker, but I am going to see that letter."
As if divining his thought, but placing thereon a wrong construction, the man said:
I should avail myself of your kindness to deliver my letter to Doctor van Heerden, but of what service would it be since it is only a letter introducing me to the good doctor?
Oh, is that all? said Beale, disappointed, and somehow he knew the man spoke the truth.
That is all, he said, "except of course my message, which is verbal. My name is Stardt, you may have heard the doctor speak of me. We have had some correspondence."
Yes, yes, I remember, lied Beale.
The message is for him alone, of course, as you will understand, and if I deliver it to you, smiled Herr Stardt, "you should not understand it, because it is one word."
One word? said Beale blankly. "A code--hang!"
Oliva Cresswell awoke to consciousness as she was being carried up the stairs of the house. She may have recovered sooner, for she retained a confused impression of being laid down amidst waving grasses and of hearing somebody grunt that she was heavier than he thought.
Also she remembered as dimly the presence of Dr. van Heerden standing over her, and he was wearing a long grey dust-coat.
As her captor kicked open the door of her room she scrambled out of his arms and leant against the bed-rail for support.
I'm all right, she said breathlessly, "it was foolish to faint, but--but you frightened me."
The man grinned, and seemed about to speak, but a sharp voice from the landing called him, and he went out, slamming the door behind him. She crossed to the bath-room, bathed her face in cold water and felt better, though she was still a little giddy.
Then she sat down to review the situation, and in that review two figures came alternately into prominence--van Heerden and Beale.
She was an eminently sane girl. She had had the beginnings of what might have been an unusually fine education, had it not been interrupted by the death of her foster-mother. She had, too, the advantage which the finished young lady does not possess, of having grafted to the wisdom of the schools the sure understanding of men and things which personal contact with struggling humanity can alone give to us.
The great problems of life had been sprung upon her with all their hideous realism, and through all she had retained her poise and her clear vision. Many of the phenomena represented by man's attitude to woman she could understand, but that a man who admittedly did not love her and had no other apparent desire than to rid himself of the incubus of a wife as soon as he was wed, should wish to marry her was incomprehensible. That he had already published the banns of her marriage left her gasping at his audacity. Strange how her thoughts leapt all the events of the morning: the wild rush to escape, the struggle with the hideously masked man, and all that went before or followed, and went back to the night before.
Somehow she knew that van Heerden had told her the truth, and that there was behind this act of his a deeper significance than she could grasp. She remembered what he had said about Beale, and flushed.
You're silly, Matilda, she said to herself, employing the term of address which she reserved for moments of self-depreciation, "here is a young man you have only met half a dozen times, who is probably a very nice married policeman with a growing family and you are going hot and cold at the suggestion that you're in love with him." She shook her head reproachfully.
And yet upon Beale all her thoughts were centred, and however they might wander it was to Beale they returned. She could analyse that buoyancy which had asserted itself, that confidence which had suddenly become a mental armour, which repelled every terrifying thought, to this faith she had in a man, who in a few weeks before she had looked upon as an incorrigible drunkard.
She had time for thought, and really, though this she did not acknowledge, she desperately needed the occupation of that thought. What was Beale's business? Why did he employ her to copy out this list of American and Canadian statistics? Why did he want to know all these hotels, their proprietors, the chief of the police and the like? She wished she had her papers and books so that she might go on extracting that interminable list.
What would van Heerden do now? Would her attempted escape change his plans? How would he overcome the difficulty of marrying a girl who was certain to denounce him in the presence of so independent a witness as a clergyman? She would die before she married him, she told herself.
She could not rest, and walked about the room examining the framed prints and looking at the books, and occasionally walking to the glass above the dressing-chest to see if any sign was left of the red mark on her cheek where van Heerden's hand had fallen. This exercise gave her a curious satisfaction, and when she saw that the mark had subsided and was blending more to the colour of her skin she felt disappointed. Startled, she analysed this curious mental attitude and again came to Beale. She wanted Beale to see the place. She wanted Beale's sympathy. She wanted Beale's rage--she was sure he would rage.
She laughed to herself and for want of other and better amusement walked to the drawers in the dressing-bureau and examined their contents. They were empty and unlocked save one, which refused to respond to her tug. She remembered she had a small bunch of keys in her bag.
I am going to be impertinent. Forgive the liberty, she said, as she felt the lock give to the first attempt.
She pulled the drawer open. It contained a few articles of feminine attire and a thick black leather portfolio. She lifted this out, laid it on the table and opened it. It was filled with foolscap. Written on the cover was the word "Argentine" and somehow the writing was familiar to her. It was a bold hand, obviously feminine.
Where have I seen that before? she asked, and knit her forehead.
She turned the first leaf and read:
Alsigar Hotel, Fournos, Proprietor, Miguel Porcorini. Index 2.
Her mouth opened in astonishment and she ran down the list. She took out another folder. It was marked "Canada," and she turned the leaves rapidly. She recognized this work. It was the same work that Beale had given to her, a list of the hotels, their proprietors and means of conveyance, but there was no reference to the police. And then it dawned upon her. An unusually long description produced certain characteristics of writing which she recognized.
Hilda Glaum! she said. "I wonder what this means!"
She examined the contents of the drawer again and some of them puzzled her. Not the little stack of handkerchiefs, the folded collars and the like. If Hilda Glaum was in the habit of visiting Deans Folly and used this room it was natural that these things should be here. If this were her bureau the little carton of nibs and the spare note book were to be expected. It was the steel box which set her wondering. This she discovered in the far corner of the drawer. If she could have imagined anything so fantastic she might have believed that the box had been specially made to hold the thing it contained and preserve it from the dangers of fire. The lid, which closed with a spring catch, released by the pressure of a tiny button, was perfectly fitted so that the box was in all probability air-tight.
She opened it without difficulty. The sides were lined with what seemed to be at first sight thick cardboard but which proved on closer inspection to be asbestos. She opened it with a sense of eager anticipation, but her face fell. Save for a tiny square blue envelope at the bottom, the box was empty!
She lifted it in her hand to shake out the envelope and it was then that the idea occurred to her that the box had been made for the envelope, which refused to budge until she lifted one end with a hairpin.
It was unsealed, and she slipped in her finger and pulled out--a pawn ticket!
She had an inclination to laugh which she checked. She examined the ticket curiously. It announced the fact that Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros., of Commercial Road, London, had advanced ten shillings on a "Gents' Silver Hunter Watch," and the pledge had been made in the name of van Heerden!
She gazed at it bewildered. He was not a man who needed ten shillings or ten dollars or ten pounds. Why should he pledge a watch and why having pledged it should he keep the ticket with such care?
Oliva hesitated a moment, then slipped the ticket from its cover, put back the envelope at the bottom of the box and closed the lid. She found a hiding-place for the little square pasteboard before she returned the box and portfolio to the drawer and locked it.
There was a tap at the door and hastily she replaced the key in her bag.
Come in, she said.
She recognized the man who stood in the doorway as he who had carried her back to the room.
There was a strangeness in his bearing which made her uneasy, a certain subdued hilarity which suggested drunkenness.
Don't make a noise, he whispered with a stifled chuckle, "if Gregory hears he'll raise fire."
She saw that the key was in the lock on the outside of the door and this she watched. But he made no attempt to withdraw it and closed the door behind him softly.
My name is Bridgers, he whispered, "van Heerden has told you about me--Horace Bridgers, do you----?"
He took a little tortoiseshell box from the pocket of his frayed waistcoat and opened it with a little kick of his middle finger. It was half-full of white powder that glittered in a stray ray of sunlight. "Try a sniff," he begged eagerly, "and all your troubles will go--phutt!"
Thank you, no--she shook her head, looking at him with a perplexed smile--"I don't know what it is."
It's the white terror, he chuckled again, "better than the green--not so horribly musty as the green, eh?"
I'm not in the mood for terrors of any kind, she said, with a half-smile. She wondered why he had come, and had a momentary hope that he was ignorant of van Heerden's character.
All right--he stuffed the box back into his waistcoat pocket--"_you're_ the loser, you'll never find heaven on earth!"
She waited.
All the time he was speaking, it seemed to her that he was on the _qui vive_ for some interruption from below. He would stop in his speech to turn a listening ear to the door. Moreover, she was relieved to see he made no attempt to advance any farther into the room. That he was under the influence of some drug she guessed. His eyes glittered with unnatural brilliance, his hands, discoloured and uncleanly, moved nervously and were never still.
I'm Bridgers, he said again. "I'm van Heerden's best man--rather a come down for the best analytical chemist that the school ever turned out, eh? Doing odd jobs for a dirty Deutscher!" He walked to the door, opened it and listened, then tiptoed across the room to her.
You know, he whispered, "you're van Heerden's girl--what is the game?"
What is----? she stammered.
What is the game? What is it all about? I've tried to pump Gregory and Milsom, but they're mysterious. Curse all mysteries, my dear. What is the game? Why are they sending men to America, Canada, Australia and India? Come along and be a pal! Tell me! I've seen the office, I know all about it. Thousands of sealed envelopes filled with steamship tickets and money. Thousands of telegraph forms already addressed. You don't fool me! He hissed the last words almost in her face. "Why is he employing the crocks and the throw-outs of science? Perrilli, Maxon, Boyd Heyler--and me? If the game's square why doesn't he take the new men from the schools?"
She shook her head, being, by now, less interested in such revelations as he might make, than in her own personal comfort. For his attitude was grown menacing ... then the great idea came to her. Evidently this man knew nothing of the circumstances under which she had come to the house. To him she was a wilful but willing assistant of the doctor, who for some reason or other it had been necessary to place under restraint.
I will tell you everything if you will take me back to my home, she said. "I cannot give you proofs here."
She saw suspicion gather in his eyes. Then he laughed.
That won't wash, he sneered--"you know it all. I can't leave here," he said; "besides, you told me last time that there was nothing. I used to watch you working away at night," he went on to the girl's amazement. "I've sat looking at you for hours, writing and writing and writing."
She understood now. She and Hilda Glaum were of about the same build, and she was mistaken for Hilda by this bemused man who had, in all probability, never seen the other girl face to face.
What made you run away? he asked suddenly; but with a sudden resolve she brought him back to the subject he had started to discuss.
What is the use of my telling you? she asked. "You know as much as I."
Only bits, he replied eagerly, "but I don't know van Heerden's game. I know why he's marrying this other girl, everybody knows that. When is the wedding?"
What other girl? she asked.
Cresswell or Predeaux, whatever she calls herself, said Bridgers carelessly. "She was a store girl, wasn't she?"
But--she tried to speak calmly--"why do you think he wants to marry her?"
He laughed softly.
Don't be silly, he said, "you can't fool me. Everybody knows she's worth a million."
Worth a million? she gasped.
Worth a million. He smacked his lips and fumbled for the little box in his waistcoat pocket. "Try a sniff--you'll know what it feels like to be old man Millinborn's heiress."
There was a sound in the hall below and he turned with an exaggerated start (she thought it theatrical but could not know of the jangled nerves of the drug-soddened man which magnified all sound to an intensity which was almost painful).
He opened the door and slid out--and did not close the door behind him.
Swiftly she followed, and as she reached the landing saw his head disappear down the stairs. She was in a blind panic; a thousand formless terrors gripped her and turned her resolute soul to water. She could have screamed her relief when she saw that the sliding door was half-open--the man had not stopped to close it--and she passed through and down the first flight. He had vanished before she reached the half-way landing and the hall below was empty. It was a wide hall, stone-flagged, with a glass door between her and the open portal.
She flew down the stairs, pulled open the door and ran straight into van Heerden's arms.
If there were committed in London the crime of the century--a crime so tremendous that the names of the chief actors in this grisly drama were on the lips of every man, woman and talkative child in Europe--you might walk into a certain department of Scotland Yard with the assurance that you would not meet within the confining walls of that bureau any police officer who was interested in the slightest, or who, indeed, had even heard of the occurrence save by accident. This department is known as the Parley Voos or P.V. Department, and concerns itself only in suspicious events beyond the territorial waters of Great Britain and Ireland. Its body is on the Thames Embankment, but its soul is at the Central Office, or at the Surete or even at the Yamen of the police minister of Pekin.
It is sublimely ignorant of the masters of crime who dwell beneath the shadows of the Yard, but it could tell you, without stopping to look up reference, not only the names of the known gunmen of New York, but the composition of almost every secret society in China.
A Pole had a quarrel with a Jew in the streets of Cracow, and they quarrelled over the only matter which is worthy of quarrel in that part of Poland. The sum in dispute was the comparatively paltry one of 260 Kronen, but when the Jew was taken in a dying condition to the hospital he made a statement which was so curious that the Chief of Police in Cracow sent it on to Vienna and Vienna sent it to Berne and Berne scratched its chin thoughtfully and sent it forward to Paris, where it was distributed to Rio de Janeiro, New York, and London.
The Assistant Chief of the P.V. Department came out of his room and drifted aimlessly into the uncomfortable bureau of Mr. McNorton.
There's a curious yarn through from Cracow, he said, "which might interest your friend Beale."
What is it? asked McNorton, who invariably found the stories of the P.V. Department fascinating but profitless.
A man was murdered, said the P.V. man lightly, as though that were the least important feature of the story, "but before he pegged out he made a will or an assignment of his property to his son, in the course of which he said that none of his stocks--he was a corn factor--were to be sold under one thousand Kronen a bushel. That's about L30."
Corn at L30 a bushel? said McNorton. "Was he delirious?"
Not at all, said the other. "He was a very well-known man in Cracow, one Zibowski, who during the late war was principal buying agent for the German Government. The Chief of the Police at Cracow apparently asked him if he wasn't suffering from illusions, and the man then made a statement that the German Government had an option on all the grain in Galicia, Hungary and the Ukraine at a lower price. Zibowski held out for better terms. It is believed that he was working with a member of the German Government who made a fortune in the war out of army contracts. In fact, he as good as let this out just before he died, when he spoke in his delirium of a wonderful invention which was being worked on behalf of the German Government, an invention called the Green Rust."
McNorton whistled.
Is that all? he said.
That's all, said the P.V. man. "I seem to remember that Beale had made one or two mysterious references to the Rust. Where is he now?"
He left town last night, replied McNorton.
Can you get in touch with him?
The other shook his head.
I suppose you are sending on a copy of this communication to the Cabinet, he said--"it may be rather serious. Whatever the scheme is, it is being worked in London, and van Heerden is the chief operator."
He took down his hat and went out in search of Kitson, whom he found in the lobby of the hotel. James Kitson came toward him eagerly.
Have you news of Beale?
He was at Kingston this morning, said McNorton, "with Parson Homo, but he had left. I was on the 'phone to the inspector at Kingston, who did not know very much and could give me no very definite news as to whether Beale had made his discovery. He interviewed the tramp early this morning, but apparently extracted very little that was helpful. As a matter of fact, I came to you to ask if he had got in touch with you."
Kitson shook his head.
I want to see him about his Green Rust scare--Beale has gone single-handed into this matter, said the superintendent, shaking his head, "and he has played the lone game a little too long."
Is it very serious?
It may be an international matter, replied McNorton gravely, "all that we know at present is this. A big plot is on foot to tamper with the food supplies of the world and the chief plotter is van Heerden. Beale knows more about the matter than any of us, but he only gives us occasional glimpses of the real situation. I have been digging out van Heerden's record without, however, finding anything very incriminating. Up to a point he seems to have been a model citizen, though his associates were not always of the best. He has been seen in the company of at least three people with a bad history. Milsom, a doctor, convicted of murder in the 'nineties; Bridgers, an American chemist with two convictions for illicit trading in drugs; Gregory--who seems to be his factotum and general assistant, convicted in Manchester for saccharine smuggling; and a girl called Glaum, who is an alien, charged during the war for failing to register."
But against van Heerden?
Nothing. He has travelled a great deal in America and on the Continent. He was in Spain a few years ago and was suspected of being associated with the German Embassy. His association with the Millinborn murder you know.
Yes, I know that, said James Kitson bitterly.
Beale will have to tell us all he knows, McNorton went on, "and probably we can tell him something he doesn't know; namely, that van Heerden conducts a pretty expensive correspondence by cable with all parts of the world. Something has happened in Cracow which gives a value to all Beale's suspicions."
Briefly he related the gist of the story which had reached him that morning.
It is incredible, said Kitson when the chief had finished. "It would be humanly impossible for the world to buy at that price. And there is no reason for it. It happens that I am interested in a milling corporation and I know that the world's crops are good--in fact, the harvest will be well above the average. I should say that the Cracow Jew was talking in delirium."
But McNorton smiled indulgently.
I hope you're right, he said. "I hope the whole thing is a mare's nest and for once in my life I trust that the police clues are as wrong as hell. But, anyway, van Heerden is cabling mighty freely--and I want Beale!"
But Beale was unreachable. A visit to his apartment produced no results. The "foreign gentleman" who on the previous day had called on van Heerden had been seen there that morning, but he, too, had vanished, and none of McNorton's watchers had been able to pick him up.
McNorton shifted the direction of his search and dropped into the palatial establishment of Punsonby's. He strolled past the grill-hidden desk which had once held Oliva Cresswell, and saw out of the tail of his eye a stranger in her place and by her side the darkly taciturn Hilda Glaum.
Mr. White, that pompous man, greeted him strangely. As the police chief came into the private office Mr. White half-rose, turned deadly pale and became of a sudden bereft of speech. McNorton recognized the symptoms from long acquaintance with the characteristics of detected criminals, and wondered how deeply this pompous man was committed to whatever scheme was hatching.
Ah--ah--Mr. McNorton! stammered White, shaking like a leaf, "won't you sit down, please? To what--to what," he swallowed twice before he could get the words out, "to what am I indebted?"
Just called in to look you up, said McNorton genially. "Have you been losing any more--registered letters lately?"
Mr. White subsided again into his chair.
Yes, yes--no, I mean, he said, "no--ah--thank you. It was kind of you to call, inspector----"
Superintendent, corrected the other good-humouredly.
A thousand pardons, superintendent, said Mr. White hastily, "no, sir, nothing so unfortunate."
He shot a look half-fearful, half-resentful at the police officer.
And how is your friend Doctor van Heerden?
Mr. White twisted uncomfortably in his chair. Again his look of nervousness and apprehension.
Mr.--ah--van Heerden is not a friend of mine, he said, "a business acquaintance," he sighed heavily, "just a business acquaintance."
The White he had known was not the White of to-day. The man looked older, his face was more heavily lined and his eyes were dark with weariness.
I suppose he's a pretty shrewd fellow, he remarked carelessly. "You are interested in some of his concerns, aren't you?"
Only one, only one, replied White sharply, "and I wish to Heaven----"
He stopped himself.
And you wish you weren't, eh?
Again the older man wriggled in his chair.
Doctor van Heerden is very clever, he said; "he has great schemes, in one of which I am--ah--financially interested, That is all--I have put money into his--ah--syndicate, without, of course, knowing the nature of the work which is being carried out. That I would impress upon you."
You are a trusting investor, said the good-humoured McNorton.
I am a child in matters of finance, admitted Mr. White, but added quickly, "except, of course, in so far as the finance of Punsonby's, which is one of the soundest business concerns in London, Mr. McNorton. We pay our dividends regularly and our balance sheets are a model for the industrial world."
So I have heard, said McNorton dryly. "I am interested in syndicates, too. By the way, what is Doctor van Heerden's scheme?"
Mr. White shrugged his shoulders.
I haven't the slightest idea, he confessed with a melancholy smile. "I suppose it is very foolish of me, but I have such faith in the doctor's genius that when he came to me and said: 'My dear White, I want you to invest a few thousand in one of my concerns,' I said: 'My dear doctor, here is my cheque, don't bother me about the details but send in my dividends regularly.' Ha! ha!"
His laugh was hollow, and would not have deceived a child of ten.
So you invested L40,000---- began McNorton.
Forty thousand! gasped Mr. White, "how did you know?"
He went a trifle paler.
These things get about, said McNorton, "as I was going to say, you invested L40,000 without troubling to discover what sort of work the syndicate was undertaking. I am not speaking now as a police officer, Mr. White," he went on, and White did not disguise his relief, "but as an old acquaintance of yours."
Say friend, said the fervent Mr. White. "I have always regarded you, Mr. McNorton, as a friend of mine. Let me see, how long have we known one another? I think the first time we met was when Punsonby's was burgled in '93."
It's a long time, said McNorton; "but don't let us get off the subject of your investment, which interests me as a friend. You gave Doctor van Heerden all this money without even troubling to discover whether his enterprise was a legal one. I am not suggesting it was illegal," he said, as White opened his mouth to protest, "but it seems strange that you did not trouble to inquire."
Oh, of course, I inquired, naturally I inquired, Mr. McNorton, said White eagerly, "it was for some chemical process and I know nothing about chemistry. I don't mind admitting to you," he lowered his voice, though there was no necessity, "that I regret my investment very much. We business men have many calls. We cannot allow our money to be tied up for too long a time, and it happens--ah--that just at this moment I should be very glad, very glad indeed, to liquidate that investment."
McNorton nodded. He knew a great deal more about White's financial embarrassments than that gentleman gave him credit for. He knew, for example, that the immaculate managing director of Punsonby's was in the hands of moneylenders, and that those moneylenders were squeezing him. He suspected that all was not well with Punsonby's. There had been curious rumours in the City amongst the bill discounters that Punsonby's "paper" left much to be desired.
Do you know the nationality of van Heerden? he asked.
Dutch, replied Mr. White promptly.
Are you sure of this?
I would stake my life on it, answered the heroic Mr. White.
As I came through to your office I saw a young lady at the cashier's desk--Miss Glaum, I think her name is. Is she Dutch, too?
Miss Glaum--ah--well Miss Glaum. White hesitated. "A very nice, industrious girl, and a friend of Doctor van Heerden's. As a matter of fact, I engaged her at his recommendation. You see, I was under an obligation to the doctor. He had--ah--attended me in my illness."
That this was untrue McNorton knew. White was one of those financial shuttlecocks which shrewd moneylenders toss from one to the other. White had been introduced by van Heerden to capital in a moment of hectic despair and had responded when his financial horizon was clearer by pledging his credit for the furtherance of van Heerden's scheme.
Of course you know that as a shareholder in van Heerden's syndicate you cannot escape responsibility for the purposes to which your money is put, he said, as he rose to go. "I hope you get your money back."
Do you think there is any doubt? demanded White, in consternation.
There is always a doubt about getting money back from syndicates, said McNorton cryptically.
Please don't go yet. Mr. White passed round the end of his desk and intercepted the detective with unexpected agility, taking, so to speak, the door out of his hands and closing it. "I am alarmed, Mr. McNorton," he said, as he led the other back to his chair, "I won't disguise it. I am seriously alarmed by what you have said. It is not the thought of losing the money, oh dear, no. Punsonby's would not be ruined by--ah--a paltry L40,000. It is, if I may be allowed to say so, the sinister suggestion in your speech, inspector--superintendent I mean. Is it possible"--he stood squarely in front of McNorton, his hands on his hips, his eyeglass dangling from his fastidious fingers and his head pulled back as though he wished to avoid contact with the possibility, "is it possible that in my ignorance I have been assisting to finance a scheme which is--ah--illegal, immoral, improper and contrary--ah--to the best interests of the common weal?"
He shook his head as though he were unable to believe his own words.
Everything is possible in finance, said McNorton with a smile. "I am not saying that Doctor van Heerden's syndicate is an iniquitous one, I have not even seen a copy of his articles of association. Doubtless you could oblige me in that respect."
I haven't got such a thing, denied Mr. White vigorously, "the syndicate was not registered. It was, so to speak, a private concern."
But the exploitation of Green Rust? suggested the superintendent, and the man's face lost the last vestige of colour it possessed.
The Green Rust? he faltered. "I have heard the phrase. I know nothing----"
You know nothing, but suspect the worst, said McNorton. "Now I am going to speak plainly to you. The reason you know nothing about this syndicate of van Heerden's is because you had a suspicion that it was being formed for an illegal purpose--please don't interrupt me--you know nothing because you did not want to know. I doubt even whether you deceived yourself. You saw a chance of making big money, Mr. White, and big money has always had an attraction for you. There isn't a fool's scheme that was ever hatched in a back alley bar that you haven't dropped money over. And you saw a chance here, more tangible than any that had been presented to you."
I swear to you---- began White.
The time has not come for you to swear anything, said McNorton sternly, "there is only one place where a man need take his oath, and that is on the witness-stand. I will tell you this frankly, that we are as much in the dark as you pretend to be. There is only one man who knows or guesses the secret of the Green Rust, and that man is Beale."
Beale!
You have met the gentleman, I believe? I hope you don't have to meet him again. The Green Rust may mean little. It may mean no more than that you will lose your money, and I should imagine that is the least which will happen to you. On the other hand, Mr. White, I do not disguise from you the fact that it may also mean your death at the hands of the law.
White made a gurgling noise in his throat and held on to the desk for support.
I have only the haziest information as to what it is all about, but somehow--McNorton knit his brows in a frown and was speaking half to himself--"I seem to feel that it is a bad business--a damnably bad business."
He took up his hat from the table and walked to the door.
I don't know whether to say au revoir or good-bye, he said with twitching lips.
Good-bye--ah--is a very good old-fashioned word, said Mr. White, in an heroic attempt to imitate the other's good humour.
Dr. van Heerden sat by the side of the big four-poster bed, where the girl lay, and his cold blue eyes held a spark of amusement.
You look very foolish, he said.
Oliva Cresswell turned her head sharply so as to remove the man from her line of vision.
More than this she could not do, for her hands and feet were strapped, and on the pillow, near her head, was a big bath-towel saturated with water which had been employed in stifling her healthy screams which marked her return to understanding.
You look very foolish, said the doctor, chewing at the end of his cigar, "and you look no more foolish than you have been. Bridgers let you out, eh? Nice man, Mr. Bridgers; what had he been telling you?"
She turned her head again and favoured him with a stare. Then she looked at the angry red mark on her wrists where the straps chafed.
How Hun-like! she said; but this time he smiled.
You will not make me lose my temper again, Little-wife-to-be, he mocked her; "you may call me Hun or Heinz or Fritz or any of the barbarous and vulgar names which the outside world employ to vilify my countrymen, but nothing you say will distress or annoy me. To-morrow you and I will be man and wife."
This is not Germany, she said scornfully. "You cannot make a woman marry you against her will, this is----"
The land of the free, he interrupted suavely. "Yes--I know those lands, on both sides of the Atlantic. But even there curious things happen. And you're going to marry me--you will say 'Yes' to the sleek English clergyman when he asks you whether you will take this man to be your married husband, to love and cherish and all that sort of thing, you'll say 'Yes.'"
I shall say 'No!' she said steadily.
You will say 'Yes,' he smiled. "I had hoped to be able to give sufficient time to you so that I might persuade you to act sensibly. I could have employed arguments which I think would have convinced you that there are worse things than marriage with me."
I cannot think of any, she replied coldly.
Then you are singularly dense, said the doctor. "I have already told you the conditions under which that marriage will take place. There might be no marriage, you know, and a different end to this adventure," he said, significantly, and she shivered.
He said nothing more for five minutes, simply sitting biting at the cigar between his teeth and looking at her blankly, as though his thoughts were far away and she was the least of the problems which confronted him.
I know it is absurd to ask you, he said suddenly, "but I presume you have not devoted any of your studies to the question of capital punishment. I see you haven't; but there is one interesting fact about the execution of criminals which is not generally known to the public, and it is that in many countries, my own for example, before a man is led to execution he is doped with a drug which I will call 'Bromocine.' Does that interest you?"
She made no reply, and he laughed quietly.
It should interest you very much, he said. "The effect of Bromocine," he went on, speaking with the quiet precision of one who was lecturing on the subject to an interested audience, "is peculiar. It reduces the subject to a condition of extreme lassitude, so that really nothing matters or seems to matter. Whilst perfectly conscious the subject goes obediently to his death, behaves normally and does just what he is told--in fact, it destroys the will."
Why do you tell me this? she asked, a sudden fear gripping her heart.
He half-turned in his chair, reached out his hand and took a little black case from the table near the window. This he laid on the bed and opened, and she watched him, fascinated. He took a tiny bottle containing a colourless liquid, and with great care laid it on the coverlet. Then he extracted a small hypodermic syringe and a needle-pointed nozzle. He uncorked the bottle, inserted the syringe and filled it, then he screwed on the needle, pressed the plunger until a fine jet leapt in the air, then he laid it carefully back in the case.
You say you will not marry me and I presume that you would make a scene when I bring in the good English parson to perform the ceremony. I had hoped, he said apologetically, "to have given you a wedding with all the pomp and circumstance which women, as I understand, love. Failing that, I hoped for a quiet wedding in the little church out yonder." He jerked his head toward the window. "But now I am afraid that I must ask his reverence to carry out the ceremony in this house."
He rose, leant over her and deftly pulled back her sleeve.
If you scream I shall smother you with the towel, he said. "This won't hurt you very much. As I was going to say, you will be married here because you are in a delicate state of health and you will say 'Yes.'"
She winced as the needle punctured the skin.
It won't hurt you for very long, he said calmly. "You will say 'Yes,' I repeat, because I shall tell you to say 'Yes.'"
Suddenly the sharp pricking pain in her arm ceased. She was conscious of a sensation as though her arm was being blown up like a bicycle tyre, but it was not unpleasant. He withdrew the needle and kept his finger pressed upon the little red wound where it had gone in.
I shall do this to you again to-night, he said, "and you will not feel it at all, and to-morrow morning, and you will not care very much what happens. I hope it will not be necessary to give you a dose to-morrow afternoon."
I shall not always be under the influence of this drug, she said between her teeth, "and there will be a time of reckoning for you, Dr. van Heerden."
By which time, he said calmly, "I shall have committed a crime so wonderful and so enormous that the mere offence of 'administering a noxious drug'--that is the terminology which describes the offence--will be of no importance and hardly worth the consideration of the Crown officers. Now I think I can unfasten you." He loosened and removed the straps at her wrists and about her feet and put them in his pocket.
You had better get up and walk about, he said, "or you will be stiff. I am really being very kind to you if you only knew it. I am too big to be vindictive. And, by the way, I had an interesting talk with your friend, Mr. Beale, this afternoon, a persistent young man who has been having me shadowed all day." He laughed quietly. "If I hadn't to go back to the surgery for the Bromocine I should have missed our very interesting conversation. That young man is very much in love with you"--he looked amusedly at the growing red in her face. "He is very much in love with you," he repeated. "What a pity! What a thousand pities!"
How soon will this drug begin to act? she asked.
Are you frightened?
No, but I should welcome anything which made me oblivious to your presence--you are not exactly a pleasant companion, she said, with a return to the old tone he knew so well.
Content yourself, little person, he said with simulated affection. "You will soon be rid of me."
Why do you want to marry me?
I can tell you that now, he said: "Because you are a very rich woman and I want your money, half of which comes to me on my marriage."
Then the man spoke the truth! She sat up suddenly, but the effort made her head swim.
He caught her by the shoulders and laid her gently down.
What man--not that babbling idiot, Bridgers? He said something, but instantly recovered his self-possession. "Keep quiet," he said with professional sternness. "Yes, you are the heiress of an interesting gentleman named John Millinborn."
John Millinborn! she gasped. "The man who was murdered!"
The man who was killed, he corrected. "'Murder' is a stupid, vulgar word. Yes, my dear, you are his heiress. He was your uncle, and he left you something over six million dollars. That is to say he left us that colossal sum."
But I don't understand. What does it mean?
Your name is Predeaux. Your father was the ruffian----
I know, I know, she cried. "The man in the hotel. The man who died. My father!"
Interesting, isn't it? he said calmly, "like something out of a book. Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that that was the truth."
My father! she murmured.
She lay, her face as white as the pillow, her eyes closed.
John Millinborn left a fortune for you--and I think that you might as well know the truth now--the money was left in trust. You were not to know that you were an heiress until you were married. He was afraid of some fortune-hunter ruining your young life as Predeaux ruined your mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now I don't intend ruining your life, I intend leaving you with half your uncle's fortune and the capacity for enjoying all that life can hold for a high-spirited young woman.
I'll not do it, I'll not do it, I'll not do it, she muttered.
He rose from the chair and bent over her.
My young friend, you are going to sleep, he said to himself, waited a little longer and left the room, closing the door behind him.
He descended to the hall and passed into the big dining-hall beneath the girl's bedroom. The room had two occupants, a stout, hairless man who had neither hair, eyebrows, nor vestige of beard, and a younger man.
Hello, Bridgers, said van Heerden addressing the latter, "you've been talking."
Well, who doesn't? snarled the man.
He pulled the tortoiseshell box from his pocket, opened the lid and took a pinch from its contents, snuffling the powder luxuriously.
That stuff will kill you one of these days, said van Heerden.
It will make him better-tempered, growled the hairless man. "I don't mind people who take cocaine as long as they are taking it. It's between dopes that they get on my nerves."
Dr. Milsom speaks like a Christian and an artist, said Bridgers, with sudden cheerfulness. "If I didn't dope, van Heerden, I should not be working in your beastly factory, but would probably be one of the leading analytical chemists in America. But I'll go back to do my chore," he said rising. "I suppose I get a little commission for restoring your palpitating bride? Milsom tells me that it is she. I thought it was the other dame--the Dutch girl. I guess I was a bit dopey."
Van Heerden frowned.
You take too keen an interest in my affairs, he said.
Aw! You're getting touchy. If I didn't get interested in something I'd go mad, chuckled Bridgers.
He had reached that stage of cocaine intoxication when the world was a very pleasant place indeed and full of subject for jocularity.
This place is getting right on my nerves, he went on, "couldn't I go to London? I'm stagnating here. Why, some of the stuff I cultivated the other day wouldn't react. Isn't that so, Milsom? I get so dull in this hole that all bugs look alike to me."
Van Heerden glanced at the man who was addressed as Dr. Milsom and the latter nodded.
Let him go back, he said, "I'll look after him. How's the lady?" asked Milsom when they were alone.
The other made a gesture and Dr. Milsom nodded.
It's good stuff, he said. "I used to give it to lunatics in the days of long ago."
Van Heerden did not ask him what those days were. He never pryed too closely into the early lives of his associates, but Milsom's history was public property. Four years before he had completed a "life sentence" of fifteen years for a crime which had startled the world in '99.
How are things generally? he asked.
Van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.
For the first time I am getting nervous, he said. "It isn't so much the fear of Beale that rattles me, but the sordid question of money. The expenses are colossal and continuous."
Hasn't your--Government--Milsom balked at the word--"haven't your friends abroad moved in the matter yet?"
Van Heerden shook his head.
I am very hopeful there, he said. "I have been watching the papers very closely, especially the Agrarian papers, and, unless I am mistaken, there is a decided movement in the direction of support. But I can't depend on that. The marriage must go through to-morrow."
White is getting nervous, too, he went on. "He is pestering me about the money I owe him, or rather the syndicate owes him. He's on the verge of ruin."
Milsom made a little grimace.
Then he'll squeal, he said, "those kind of people always do. You'll have to keep him quiet. You say the marriage is coming off to-morrow?"
I have notified the parson, said van Heerden. "I told him my fiancee is too ill to attend the church and the ceremony must be performed here."
Milsom nodded. He had risen from the table and was looking out upon the pleasant garden at the rear of the house.
A man could do worse than put in three or four weeks here, he said. "Look at that spread of green."
He pointed to an expanse of waving grasses, starred with the vari-coloured blossoms of wild flowers.
I was never a lover of nature, said van Heerden, carelessly.
Milsom grunted.
You have never been in prison, he said cryptically. "Is it time to give your lady another dose?"
Not for two hours, said van Heerden. "I will play you at piquet."
The cards were shuffled and the hands dealt when there was a scamper of feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a soiled white smock and his face was distorted with terror.
M'sieur, m'sieur, he cried, "that imbecile Bridgers!"
What's wrong? Van Heerden sprang to his feet.
I think he is mad. He is dancing about the grounds, singing, and he has with him the preparation!
Van Heerden rapped out an oath and leapt through the door, the doctor at his heels. They took the short cut and ran up the steps leading from the well courtyard, and bursting through the bushes came within sight of the offender.
But he was not dancing now. He was standing with open mouth, staring stupidly about him.
I dropped it, I dropped it! he stammered.
There was no need for van Heerden to ask what he had dropped, for the green lawn which had excited Milsom's admiration was no longer to be seen. In its place was a black irregular patch of earth which looked as though it had been blasted in the furnaces of hell, and the air was filled with the pungent mustiness of decay.
It seemed that a grey curtain of mist hung before Oliva's eyes. It was a curtain spangled with tiny globes of dazzling light which grew from nothing and faded to nothing. Whenever she fixed her eyes upon one of these it straightway became two and three and then an unaccountable quantity.
She felt that she ought to see faces of people she knew, for one half of her brain had cleared and was calmly diagnosing her condition, but doing so as though she were somebody else. She was emerging from a drugged sleep; she could regard herself in a curious impersonal fashion which was most interesting. And people who are drugged see things and people. Strange mirages of the mind arise and stranger illusions are suffered. Yet she saw nothing save this silvery grey curtain with its drifting spots of light and heard nothing except a voice saying, "Come along, come along, wake up." A hundred, a thousand times this monotonous order was repeated, and then the grey curtain faded and she was lying on the bed, her head throbbing, her eyes hot and prickly, and two men were looking down at her, one of them a big barefaced man with a coarse mouth and sunken eyes.
Was it my father really? she asked drowsily.
I was afraid of that second dose you gave her last night, said Milsom. "You are getting a condition of coma and that's the last thing you want."
She'll be all right now, replied van Heerden, but his face was troubled. "The dose was severe--yet she seemed healthy enough to stand a three-minim injection."
Milsom shook his head.
She'll be all right now, but she might as easily have died, he said. "I shouldn't repeat the dose."
There's no need, said van Heerden.
What time is it? asked the girl, and sat up. She felt very weak and weary, but she experienced no giddiness.
It is twelve o'clock; you have been sleeping since seven last night. Let me see if you can stand. Get up.
She obeyed meekly. She had no desire to do anything but what she was told. Her mental condition was one of complete dependence, and had she been left to herself she would have been content to lie down again.
Yet she felt for a moment a most intense desire to propound some sort of plan which would give this man the money without going through a marriage ceremony. That desire lasted a minute and was succeeded by an added weariness as though this effort at independent thought had added a new burden to her strength. She knew and was mildly amazed at the knowledge that she was under the influence of a drug which was destroying her will, yet she felt no particular urge to make a fight for freedom of determination. "Freedom of determination." She repeated the words, having framed her thoughts with punctilious exactness, and remembered that that was a great war phrase which one was constantly discovering in the newspapers. All her thoughts were like this--they had the form of marshalled language, so that even her speculations were punctuated.
Walk over to the window, said the doctor, and she obeyed, though her knees gave way with every step she took. "Now come back--good, you're all right."
She looked at him, and did not flinch when he laid his two hands on her shoulders.
You are going to be married this afternoon--that's all right, isn't it?
Yes, she said, "that is all right."
And you'll say 'yes' when I tell you to say 'yes,' won't you?
Yes, I'll say that, she said.
All the time she knew that this was monstrously absurd. All the time she knew that she did not wish to marry this man. Fine sentences, pompously framed, slowly formed in her mind such as: "This outrage will not go unpunished, comma, and you will suffer for this, comma, Dr. van Heerden, full stop."
But the effort of creating the protest exhausted her so that she could not utter it. And she knew that the words were stilted and artificial, and the working-cells of her brain whispered that she was recalling and adapting something she had heard at the theatre. She wanted to do the easiest thing, and it seemed absurdly easy to say "yes."
You will stay here until the parson comes, said van Heerden, "and you will not attempt to escape, will you?"
No, I won't attempt to escape, she said.
Lie down.
She sat on the bed and swung her feet clear of the ground, settling herself comfortably.
She'll do, said van Heerden, satisfied. "Come downstairs, Milsom, I have something to say to you."
So they left her, lying with her cheek on her hand, more absorbed in the pattern on the wall-paper than in the tremendous events which threatened.
Well, what's the trouble? asked Milsom, seating himself in his accustomed place by the table.
This, said van Heerden, and threw a letter across to him. "It came by one of my scouts this morning--I didn't go home last night. I cannot risk being shadowed here."
Milsom opened the letter slowly and read:
A man called upon you yesterday afternoon and has made several calls since. He was seen by Beale, who cross-examined him. Man calls himself Stardt, but is apparently not British. He is staying at Saraband Hotel, Berners Street.
Who is this? asked Milsom.
I dare not hope---- replied the doctor, pacing the room nervously.
Suppose you dared, what form would your hope take?
I told you the other day, said van Heerden, stopping before his companion, "that I had asked my Government to assist me. Hitherto they have refused, that is why I am so desperately anxious to get this marriage through. I must have money. The Paddington place costs a small fortune--you go back there to-night, by the way----"
Milsom nodded.
Has the Government relented? he asked.
I don't know. I told you that certain significant items in the East Prussian newspapers seemed to hint that they were coming to my assistance. They have sent no word to me, but if they should agree they would send their agreement by messenger.
And you think this may be the man?
It is likely.
What have you done?
I have sent Gregory up to see the man. If he is what I hope he may be, Gregory will bring him here--I have given him the password.
What difference will it make? asked Milsom. "You are on to a big fortune, anyway."
Fortune? The eyes of Dr. van Heerden sparkled and he seemed to expand at the splendour of the vision which was conjured to his eyes.
No fortune which mortal man has ever possessed will be comparable. All the riches of all the world will lie at my feet. Milliards upon milliards----
In fact, a lot of money, said the practical Dr. Milsom. "'Umph! I don't quite see how you are going to do it. You haven't taken me very much into your confidence, van Heerden."
You know everything.
Milsom chuckled.
I know that in the safe of my office you have a thousand sealed envelopes addressed, as I gather, to all the scallywags of the world, and I know pretty well what you intend doing; but how do you benefit? And how do I benefit?
Van Heerden had recovered his self-possession.
You have already benefited, he said shortly, "more than you could have hoped."
There was an awkward pause; then Milsom asked:
What effect is it going to have upon this country?
It will ruin England, said van Heerden fervently, and the old criminal's eyes narrowed.
'Umph! he said again, and there was a note in his voice which made van Heerden look at him quickly.
This country hasn't done very much for you, he sneered.
And I haven't done much for this country--yet, countered the other.
The doctor laughed.
You're turning into a patriot in your old age, he said.
Something like that, said Milsom easily. "There used to be a fellow at Portland--you have probably run across him--a clever crook named Homo, who used to be a parson before he got into trouble."
I never met the gentleman, and talking of parsons, he said, looking at his watch, "our own padre is late. But I interrupted you."
He was a man whose tongue I loathed, and he hated me poisonously, said Milsom, with a little grimace, "but he used to say that patriotism was the only form of religion which survived penal servitude. And I suppose that's the case. I hate the thought of putting this country in wrong."
You'll get over your scruples, said the other easily. "You are putting yourself in right, anyway. Think of the beautiful time you're going to have, my friend."
I think of nothing else, said Milsom, "but still----" He shook his head.
Van Heerden had taken up the paper he had brought down and was reading it, and Milsom noted that he was perusing the produce columns.
When do we make a start?
Next week, said the doctor. "I want to finish up the Paddington factory and get away."
Where will you go?
I shall go to the Continent, replied van Heerden, folding up the paper and laying it on the table. "I can conduct operations from there with greater ease. Gregory goes to Canada. Mitchell and Samps have already organized Australia, and our three men in India will have ready workers."
What about the States?
That has an organization of its own, Van Heerden said; "it is costing me a lot of money. All the men except you are at their stations waiting for the word 'Go.' You will take the Canadian supplies with you."
Do I take Bridgers?
Van Heerden shook his head.
I can't trust that fool. Otherwise he would be an ideal assistant for you. Your work is simple. Before you leave I will give you a sealed envelope containing a list of all our Canadian agents. You will also find two code sentences, one of which means 'Commence operations,' and the other, 'Cancel all instructions and destroy apparatus.'
Will the latter be necessary? asked Milsom.
It may be, though it is very unlikely. But I must provide against all contingencies. I have made the organization as simple as possible. I have a chief agent in every country, and on receipt of my message by the chief of the organization, it will be repeated to the agents, who also have a copy of the code.
It seems too easy, said Milsom. "What chance is there of detection?"
None whatever, said the doctor promptly. "Our only danger for the moment is this man Beale, but he knows nothing, and so long as we only have him guessing there is no great harm done--and, anyway, he hasn't much longer to guess."
It seems much too simple, said Milsom, shaking his head.
Van Heerden had heard a footfall in the hall, stepped quickly to the door and opened it.
Well, Gregory? he said.
He is here, replied the other, and waved his hand to a figure who stood behind him. "Also, the parson is coming down the road."
Good, let us have our friend in.
The pink-faced foreigner with his stiff little moustache and his yellow boots stepped into the room, clicked his heels and bowed.
Have I the honour of addressing Doctor von Heerden?
Van Heerden, corrected the doctor with a smile "that is my name."
Both men spoke in German.
I have a letter for your excellency, said the messenger. "I have been seeking you for many days and I wish to report that unauthorized persons have attempted to take this from me."
Van Heerden nodded, tore open the envelope and read the half a dozen lines.
The test-word is 'Breslau,' he said in a low voice, and the messenger beamed.
I have the honour to convey to you the word. He whispered something in van Heerden's ear and Milsom, who did not understand German very well and had been trying to pick up a word or two, saw the look of exultation that came to the doctor's face.
He leapt back and threw out his arms, and his strong voice rang with the words which the German hymnal has made famous:
Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt, Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt!
What are you thanking God about? asked Milsom.
It's come, it's come! cried van Heerden, his eyes ablaze. "The Government is with me; behind me, my beautiful country. Oh, Gott sei Dank!"
The parson, warned Milsom.
A young man stood looking through the open door.
The parson, yes, said van Heerden, "there's no need for it, but we'll have this wedding. Yes, we'll have it! Come in, sir."
He was almost boyishly jovial. Milsom had never seen him like that before.
Come in, sir.
I am sorry to hear your fiancee is ill, said the curate.
Yes, yes, but that will not hinder the ceremony. I'll go myself and prepare her.
Milsom had walked round the table to the window, and it was he who checked the doctor as he was leaving the room.
Doctor, he said, "come here."
Van Heerden detected a strain of anxiety in the other's voice.
What is it? he said.
Do you hear somebody speaking?
They stood by the window and listened intently.
Come with me, said the doctor, and he walked noiselessly and ascended the stairs, followed more slowly by his heavier companion.
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.