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 didnot 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 littlesquare 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'rethe loser, you'll never find heaven on earth!"
She waited.
All the time he was speaking, it seemed to her that he was on thequi vivefor 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 glitteredwith unnatural brilliance, his hands, discoloured and uncleanly, moved nervously and were never still.
"I'm Bridgers," he said again. "I'm van Heerden's best man—rather a come down for the best analytical chemist that the school ever turned out, eh? Doing odd jobs for a dirty Deutscher!" He walked to the door, opened it and listened, then tiptoed across the room to her.
"You know," he whispered, "you're van Heerden's girl—what is the game?"
"What is——?" she stammered.
"What is the game? What is it all about? I've tried to pump Gregory and Milsom, but they're mysterious. Curse all mysteries, my dear. What is the game? Why are they sending men to America, Canada, Australia and India? Come along and be a pal! Tell me! I've seen the office, I know all about it. Thousands of sealed envelopes filled with steamship tickets and money. Thousands of telegraph forms already addressed. You don't fool me!" He hissed the last words almost in her face. "Why is he employing the crocks and the throw-outs of science? Perrilli, Maxon, Boyd, Heyler—and me? If the game's square why doesn't he take the new men from the schools?"
She shook her head, being, by now, less interested in such revelations as he might make, than in her own personal comfort. For his attitude was grown menacing ... then the great idea came to her. Evidently this man knew nothing of the circumstances under which she had come to the house. To him she was a wilful but willing assistant of the doctor, who for some reason or other it had been necessary to place under restraint.
"I will tell you everything if you will take me back to my home," she said. "I cannot give you proofs here."
She saw suspicion gather in his eyes. Then he laughed.
"That won't wash," he sneered—"you know it all. I can't leave here," he said; "besides, you told me last time that there was nothing. I used to watch you working away at night," he went on to the girl's amazement. "I've sat looking at you for hours, writing and writing and writing."
She understood now. She and Hilda Glaum were of about the same build, and she was mistaken for Hilda by this bemused man who had, in all probability, never seen the other girl face to face.
"What made you run away?" he asked suddenly; but with a sudden resolve she brought him back to the subject he had started to discuss.
"What is the use of my telling you?" she asked. "You know as much as I."
"Only bits," he replied eagerly, "but I don't know van Heerden's game. I know why he's marrying this other girl, everybody knows that. When is the wedding?"
"What other girl?" she asked.
"Cresswell or Prédeaux, whatever she calls herself," said Bridgers carelessly. "She was a store girl, wasn't she?"
"But"—she tried to speak calmly—"why do you think he wants to marry her?"
He laughed softly.
"Don't be silly," he said, "you can't fool me. Everybody knows she's worth a million."
"Worth a million?" she gasped.
"Worth a million." He smacked his lips and fumbled for the little box in his waistcoat pocket. "Try a sniff—you'll know what it feels like to be old man Millinborn's heiress."
There was a sound in the hall below and he turned with an exaggerated start (she thought it theatrical but could not know of the jangled nerves of the drug-soddened man which magnified all sound to an intensity which was almost painful).
He opened the door and slid out—and did not close the door behind him.
Swiftly she followed, and as she reached the landing saw his head disappear down the stairs. She was in a blind panic; a thousand formless terrors gripped her and turned her resolute soul to water. She could have screamed her relief when she saw that the sliding door was half-open—the man had not stopped to close it—and she passed through and down the first flight. He had vanished beforeshe 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 Sûreté or even at the Yamen of the police minister of Pekin.
It is sublimely ignorant of the masters of crime who dwell beneath the shadows of the Yard, but it could tell you, without stopping to look up reference, not only the names of the known gunmen of New York, but the composition of almost every secret society in China.
A Pole had a quarrel with a Jew in the streets of Cracow, and they quarrelled over the only matter which is worthy of quarrel in that part of Poland. The sum in dispute was the comparatively paltry one of 260 Kronen, but when the Jew was taken in a dying condition to the hospital he made a statement which was so curious that the Chiefof Police in Cracow sent it on to Vienna and Vienna sent it to Berne and Berne scratched its chin thoughtfully and sent it forward to Paris, where it was distributed to Rio de Janeiro, New York, and London.
The Assistant Chief of the P.V. Department came out of his room and drifted aimlessly into the uncomfortable bureau of Mr. McNorton.
"There's a curious yarn through from Cracow," he said, "which might interest your friend Beale."
"What is it?" asked McNorton, who invariably found the stories of the P.V. Department fascinating but profitless.
"A man was murdered," said the P.V. man lightly, as though that were the least important feature of the story, "but before he pegged out he made a will or an assignment of his property to his son, in the course of which he said that none of his stocks—he was a corn factor—were to be sold under one thousand Kronen a bushel. That's about £30."
"Corn at £30 a bushel?" said McNorton. "Was he delirious?"
"Not at all," said the other. "He was a very well-known man in Cracow, one Zibowski, who during the late war was principal buying agent for the German Government. The Chief of the Police at Cracow apparently asked him if he wasn't suffering from illusions, and the man then made a statement that the German Government had an option on all the grain in Galicia, Hungary and the Ukraine at a lower price. Zibowski held out for better terms. It is believed that he was working with a member of the German Government who made a fortune in the war out of army contracts. In fact, he as good as let this out just before he died, when he spoke in his delirium of a wonderful invention which was being worked on behalf of the German Government, an invention called the Green Rust."
McNorton whistled.
"Is that all?" he said.
"That's all," said the P.V. man. "I seem to remember that Beale had made one or two mysterious references to the Rust. Where is he now?"
"He left town last night," replied McNorton.
"Can you get in touch with him?"
The other shook his head.
"I suppose you are sending on a copy of this communication to the Cabinet," he said—"it may be rather serious. Whatever the scheme is, it is being worked in London, and van Heerden is the chief operator."
He took down his hat and went out in search of Kitson, whom he found in the lobby of the hotel. James Kitson came toward him eagerly.
"Have you news of Beale?"
"He was at Kingston this morning," said McNorton, "with Parson Homo, but he had left. I was on the 'phone to the inspector at Kingston, who did not know very much and could give me no very definite news as to whether Beale had made his discovery. He interviewed the tramp early this morning, but apparently extracted very little that was helpful. As a matter of fact, I came to you to ask if he had got in touch with you."
Kitson shook his head.
"I want to see him about his Green Rust scare—Beale has gone single-handed into this matter," said the superintendent, shaking his head, "and he has played the lone game a little too long."
"Is it very serious?"
"It may be an international matter," replied McNorton gravely, "all that we know at present is this. A big plot is on foot to tamper with the food supplies of the world and the chief plotter is van Heerden. Beale knows more about the matter than any of us, but he only gives us occasional glimpses of the real situation. I have been digging out van Heerden's record without, however, finding anything very incriminating. Up to a point he seems to have been a model citizen, though his associates were not always of the best. He has been seen in the company of at least three people with a bad history. Milsom, a doctor, convicted of murder in the 'nineties; Bridgers, an American chemist with two convictions for illicit trading in drugs; Gregory—who seems to be his factotum and general assistant, convicted in Manchester for saccharinesmuggling; 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 hasgreat schemes, in one of which I am—ah—financially interested. That is all—I have put money into his—ah—syndicate, without, of course, knowing the nature of the work which is being carried out. That I would impress upon you."
"You are a trusting investor," said the good-humoured McNorton.
"I am a child in matters of finance," admitted Mr. White, but added quickly, "except, of course, in so far as the finance of Punsonby's, which is one of the soundest business concerns in London, Mr. McNorton. We pay our dividends regularly and our balance sheets are a model for the industrial world."
"So I have heard," said McNorton dryly. "I am interested in syndicates, too. By the way, what is Doctor van Heerden's scheme?"
Mr. White shrugged his shoulders.
"I haven't the slightest idea," he confessed with a melancholy smile. "I suppose it is very foolish of me, but I have such faith in the doctor's genius that when he came to me and said: 'My dear White, I want you to invest a few thousand in one of my concerns,' I said: 'My dear doctor, here is my cheque, don't bother me about the details but send in my dividends regularly.' Ha! ha!"
His laugh was hollow, and would not have deceived a child of ten.
"So you invested £40,000——" began McNorton.
"Forty thousand!" gasped Mr. White, "how did you know?"
He went a trifle paler.
"These things get about," said McNorton, "as I was going to say, you invested £40,000 without troubling to discover what sort of work the syndicate was undertaking. I am not speaking now as a police officer, Mr. White," he went on, and White did not disguise his relief, "but as an old acquaintance of yours."
"Say friend," said the fervent Mr. White. "I have always regarded you, Mr. McNorton, as a friend of mine. Let me see, how long have we known one another? Ithink 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 herat his recommendation. You see, I was under an obligation to the doctor. He had—ah—attended me in my illness."
That this was untrue McNorton knew. White was one of those financial shuttlecocks which shrewd moneylenders toss from one to the other. White had been introduced by van Heerden to capital in a moment of hectic despair and had responded when his financial horizon was clearer by pledging his credit for the furtherance of van Heerden's scheme.
"Of course you know that as a shareholder in van Heerden's syndicate you cannot escape responsibility for the purposes to which your money is put," he said, as he rose to go. "I hope you get your money back."
"Do you think there is any doubt?" demanded White, in consternation.
"There is always a doubt about getting money back from syndicates," said McNorton cryptically.
"Please don't go yet." Mr. White passed round the end of his desk and intercepted the detective with unexpected agility, taking, so to speak, the door out of his hands and closing it. "I am alarmed, Mr. McNorton," he said, as he led the other back to his chair, "I won't disguise it. I am seriously alarmed by what you have said. It is not the thought of losing the money, oh dear, no. Punsonby's would not be ruined by—ah—a paltry £40,000. It is, if I may be allowed to say so, the sinister suggestion in your speech, inspector—superintendent I mean. Is it possible"—he stood squarely in front of McNorton, his hands on his hips, his eyeglass dangling from his fastidious fingers and his head pulled back as though he wished to avoid contact with the possibility, "is it possible that in my ignorance I have been assisting to finance a scheme which is—ah—illegal, immoral, improper and contrary—ah—to the best interests of the common weal?"
He shook his head as though he were unable to believe his own words.
"Everything is possible in finance," said McNorton with a smile. "I am not saying that Doctor van Heerden'ssyndicate 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 Prédeaux. Your father was the ruffian——"
"I know, I know," she cried. "The man in the hotel. The man who died. My father!"
"Interesting, isn't it?" he said calmly, "like something out of a book. Yes, my dear, that was your parent, a dissolute ruffian whom you will do well to forget. I heard John Millinborn tell his lawyer that your mother died of a broken heart, penniless, as a result of your father's cruelty and unscrupulousness, and I should imagine that that was the truth."
"My father!" she murmured.
She lay, her face as white as the pillow, her eyes closed.
"John Millinborn left a fortune for you—and I think that you might as well know the truth now—the money was left in trust. You were not to know that you were an heiress until you were married. He was afraid of some fortune-hunter ruining your young life as Prédeaux ruined your mother's. That was thoughtful of him. Now Idon'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. "Itold him my fiancée is too ill to attend the church and the ceremony must be performed here."
Milsom nodded. He had risen from the table and was looking out upon the pleasant garden at the rear of the house.
"A man could do worse than put in three or four weeks here," he said. "Look at that spread of green."
He pointed to an expanse of waving grasses, starred with the vari-coloured blossoms of wild flowers.
"I was never a lover of nature," said van Heerden, carelessly.
Milsom grunted.
"You have never been in prison," he said cryptically. "Is it time to give your lady another dose?"
"Not for two hours," said van Heerden. "I will play you at piquet."
The cards were shuffled and the hands dealt when there was a scamper of feet in the hall, the door burst open and a man ran in. He was wearing a soiled white smock and his face was distorted with terror.
"M'sieur, m'sieur," he cried, "that imbecile Bridgers!"
"What's wrong?" Van Heerden sprang to his feet.
"I think he is mad. He is dancing about the grounds, singing, and he has with him the preparation!"
Van Heerden rapped out an oath and leapt through the door, the doctor at his heels. They took the short cut and ran up the steps leading from the well courtyard, and bursting through the bushes came within sight of the offender.
But he was not dancing now. He was standing with open mouth, staring stupidly about him.
"I dropped it, I dropped it!" he stammered.
There was no need for van Heerden to ask what he had dropped, for the green lawn which had excited Milsom's admiration was no longer to be seen. In its place was a black irregular patch of earth which looked as though it had been blasted in the furnaces of hell, and the air was filled with the pungent mustiness of decay.
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."
"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 whyI 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 alreadyorganized 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 moustacheand his yellow boots stepped into the room, clicked his heels and bowed.
"Have I the honour of addressing Doctor von Heerden?"
"Van Heerden," corrected the doctor with a smile "that is my name."
Both men spoke in German.
"I have a letter for your excellency," said the messenger. "I have been seeking you for many days and I wish to report that unauthorized persons have attempted to take this from me."
Van Heerden nodded, tore open the envelope and read the half a dozen lines.
"The test-word is 'Breslau,'" he said in a low voice, and the messenger beamed.
"I have the honour to convey to you the word." He whispered something in van Heerden's ear and Milsom, who did not understand German very well and had been trying to pick up a word or two, saw the look of exultation that came to the doctor's face.
He leapt back and threw out his arms, and his strong voice rang with the words which the German hymnal has made famous:
"Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt, Gott sei Dank durch alle Welt!"
"What are you thanking God about?" asked Milsom.
"It's come, it's come!" cried van Heerden, his eyes ablaze. "The Government is with me; behind me, my beautiful country. Oh, Gott sei Dank!"
"The parson," warned Milsom.
A young man stood looking through the open door.
"The parson, yes," said van Heerden, "there's no need for it, but we'll have this wedding. Yes, we'll have it! Come in, sir."
He was almost boyishly jovial. Milsom had never seen him like that before.
"Come in, sir."
"I am sorry to hear your fiancée is ill," said the curate.
"Yes, yes, but that will not hinder the ceremony. I'll go myself and prepare her."
Milsom had walked round the table to the window, and it was he who checked the doctor as he was leaving the room.
"Doctor," he said, "come here."
Van Heerden detected a strain of anxiety in the other's voice.
"What is it?" he said.
"Do you hear somebody speaking?"
They stood by the window and listened intently.
"Come with me," said the doctor, and he walked noiselessly and ascended the stairs, followed more slowly by his heavier companion.