The Green Rust - Edgar Wallace (top 10 ebook reader TXT) 📗

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

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

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

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

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

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


CHAPTER XXX

THE WATCH


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

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

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

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

"Are we going far?" she asked.

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

"That you will discover," said he.

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

"Perhaps it would be better," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

"And that is?" asked Beale.

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

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

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

Beale nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beale nodded, and his eyes twinkled.

"Did you make any progress?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And you have advised me," said Beale.

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

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

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

"She's not there," said Kitson.

"Not in her room?"

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

Prim Minnie came through the bedroom door.

"Where is your mistress?"

"I thought she was with you, sir."

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

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

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

"Has anybody been here?" he asked.

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

Beale noticed the hesitation.

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you sure?" asked the latter.

"Absolutely sure, sir."

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

"I beg your pardon, sir."

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

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

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

"A watch, sir."

"How much was it pledged for?"

"Ten shillings, sir."

"Do you remember the name."

"In a foreign name, sir--van Horden."

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

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

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

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

"Any number?"

"I didn't see the number."

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

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

"I've found it!" cried Beale.

"Found what?" asked Kitson.

"The code!"

"Where? How?" asked McNorton.

"Unless I am altogether wrong the code is contained, either engraved on the case or written on a slip of paper enclosed within the case of a watch. Can't you see it all plainly now? Van Heerden neither trusted his memory nor his subordinates. He had his simple code written, as we shall find, upon thin paper enclosed in the case