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

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"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.


CHAPTER XV

THE GOOD HERR STARDT


"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