The Green Rust by Edgar Wallace (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📕

the confirmation till she saw Beale, when she noticed a cupboard beneath the shelves. It was unlocked and she opened it and found, as she had expected, that it was full of books, amongst which was the missing documentation she sought.

With a view to future contingencies, she examined the contents of the cupboard and was arrested by a thin volume which bore no inscription or title on its blank cover. She opened it, and on the title page read: "The Millinborn Murder." The author's name was not given and the contents were made up of very careful analysis of evidence given by the various witnesses at the inquest, and plans and diagrams with little red crosses to show where every actor in that tragedy had been.

She read the first page idly and turned it. She was half-way down the second page when she uttered a little exclamation, for a familiar name was there, the name of Dr. van Heerden.

Fascinated, she read the story to the end, half-expecting that the name of Mr. Beale would occur.

There were many names all unknown to her and one that occurred with the greatest frequency was that of James Kitson. Mr. Beale did not appear to have played any part. She read for an hour, sitting on the floor by the cupboard. She reached the last page, closed the book and slipped it back in the cupboard. She wondered why Beale had preserved this record and whether his antagonism to the doctor was founded on that case. At first she thought she identified him with the mysterious man who had appeared in the plantation before the murder, but a glance back at the description of the stranger dispelled that idea. For all the reputation he had, Mr. Beale did not have "an inflamed, swollen countenance, colourless bloodshot eyes," nor was he bald.

She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed her work to be interrupted, and in penance decided to remain on until six instead of five o'clock as she had intended. Besides, she half expected that Mr. Beale would return, and was surprised to discover that she was disappointed that he had not.

At six o'clock she dismissed the boy, closed and locked the office, and made her way downstairs into the crowded street.

To her surprise she heard her name spoken, and turned to face Dr. van Heerden.

"I have been waiting for you for nearly an hour," he said with good-humoured reproach.

"And your patients are probably dying like flies," she countered.

It was in her mind to make some excuse and go home alone, but curiosity got the better of her and impelled her to wait to discover the object of this unexpected visitation.

"How did you know where I was working?" she asked, as the thought occurred to her.

He laughed.

"It was a very simple matter. I was on my way to a patient and I saw you coming out to lunch," he said, "and as I found myself in the neighbourhood an hour ago I thought I would wait and take you home. You are doing a very foolish thing," he added.

"What do you mean-in stopping to talk to you when I ought to be on my way home to tea?"

"No, in engaging yourself to a man like Beale. You know the reputation he has! My dear girl, I was shocked when I discovered who your employer was."

"I don't think you need distress yourself on my account, doctor," she said quietly. "Really, Mr. Beale is quite pleasant--in his lucid moments," she smiled to herself.

She was not being disloyal to her employer. If he chose to encourage suspicion in his mode of life he must abide by the consequences.

"But a drunkard, faugh!" The exquisite doctor shivered. "I have always tried to be a friend of yours, Miss Cresswell, and I hope you are going to let me continue to be, and my advice to you in that capacity is--give Mr. Beale notice."

"How absurd you are!" she laughed. "There is no reason in the world why I should do anything of the sort. Mr. Beale has treated me with the greatest consideration."

"What is he, by the way?" asked the doctor.

"He's an agent of some sort," said the girl, "but I am sure you don't want me to discuss his business. And now I must go, doctor, if you will excuse me."

"One moment," he begged. "I have a cab here. Won't you come and have tea somewhere?"

"Where is somewhere?" she asked.

"The Grand Alliance?" he suggested.

She nodded slowly.


CHAPTER VIII

THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE


The hotel and the cafe of the Grand Alliance was London's newest rendezvous. Its great palm-court was crowded at the tea-hour and if, as the mysterious Mr. Beale had hinted, any danger was to be apprehended from Dr. van Heerden, it could not come to her in that most open of public places.

She had no fear, but that eighth sense of armed caution, which is the possession of every girl who has to work for her living and is conscious of the perils which await her on every side, reviewed with lightning speed all the possibilities and gave her the passport of approval.

It was later than she had thought. Only a few tables were occupied, but he had evidently reserved one, for immediately on his appearance the waiter with a smirk led him to one of the alcoves and pulled back a chair for the girl. She looked round as she stripped her gloves. The place was not unfamiliar to her. It was here she came at rare intervals, when her finances admitted of such an hilarious recreation, to find comfort for jangled nerves, to sit and sip her tea to the sound of violins and watch the happy crowd at her leisure, absorbing something of the happiness they diffused.

The palm-court was a spacious marble hall, a big circle of polished pillars supporting the dome, through the tinted glass of which the light was filtered in soft hues upon the marble floor below.

"Doctor," she said, suddenly remembering, "I have been reading quite a lot about you to-day."

He raised his eyebrows.

"About me?"

She nodded, smiling mischievously.

"I didn't know that you were such a famous person--I have been reading about the Millinborn murder."

"You have been reading about the Millinborn murder?" he said steadily, looking into her eyes. "An unpleasant case and one I should like to forget."

"I thought it was awfully thrilling," she said. "It read like a detective story without a satisfactory end."

He laughed.

"What a perfectly gruesome subject for tea-table talk," he said lightly, and beckoned the head-waiter. "You are keeping us waiting, Jaques."

"Doctor, it will be but a few minutes," pleaded the waiter, and then in a low voice, which was not so low that it did not reach the girl. "We have had some trouble this afternoon, doctor, with your friend."

"My friend?"

The doctor looked up sharply.

"Whom do you mean?"

"With Mr. Jackson."

"Jackson," said the doctor, startled. "I thought he had left."

"He was to leave this morning by the ten o'clock train, but he had a fainting-fit. We recovered him with brandy and he was too well, for this afternoon he faint again."

"Where is he now?" asked van Heerden, after a pause.

"In his room, monsieur. To-night he leave for Ireland--this he tell me--to catch the mail steamer at Queenstown."

"Don't let him know I am here," said the doctor.

He turned to the girl with a shrug.

"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he said.

"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he faints."

"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these little attacks are not serious--he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."

She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.

Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it off.

"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"

"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now, I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"--he leant across the table and spoke in a lower tone--"something that I have never told to a human being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."

"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.

"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw anything, but later he may change his tune."

A light dawned upon her.

"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"

"Exactly," said the doctor.

"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police searching for Jackson?"

"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am sending Mr. Jackson to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."

He met her eyes unfalteringly.

"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red Horse Valley."

He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment was inarticulate.

"What--what do you know?" he asked incoherently.

His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had created.

"I only know that I heard Mr. Jackson through the ventilator of my flat, saying good-bye to you the other night. He mentioned Red Horse Valley----"

He drew a deep breath and was master of himself again, but his face was still pale.

"Oh, that," he said, "that is a polite fiction. Jackson knows of this inebriates' home in Ontario and I had to provide him with a destination. He will go no farther than----"

"Why, curse my life, if it isn't the doctor!"

At the sound of the raucous voice both looked up. The man called Jackson had hailed them from the centre of the hall. He was well dressed, but no tailor could compensate for the repulsiveness of that puckered and swollen face, those malignant eyes which peered out into the world through two slits. He was wearing his loud-check suit, his new hat was in his hand and the conical-shaped dome of his head glistened baldly.

"I'm cursed if this