CHAPTER XXIV
THE GREEN RUST FACTORY
Stanford Beale spent a thoughtful three minutes in the darkness of the cellar passage to which Hilda Glaum had led him and then he began a careful search of his pockets. He carried a little silver cigar-lighter, which had fortunately been charged with petrol that afternoon, and this afforded him a beam of adequate means to take note of his surroundings.
The space between the two locked doors was ten feet, the width of the passage three, the height about seven feet. The roof, as he had already noted, was vaulted. Now he saw that along the centre ran a strip of beading. There had evidently been an electric light installation here, probably before the new owners took possession, for at intervals was a socket for an electric bulb. The new occupants had covered these and the rest of the wall with whitewash, and yet the beading and the electric fittings looked comparatively new. One wall, that on his left as he had come in, revealed nothing under his close inspection, but on the right wall, midway between the two doors, there had been a notice painted in white letters on a black background, and this showed faintly through the thick coating of distemper which had been applied. He damped a handkerchief with his tongue and rubbed away some of the whitewash where the letters were least legible and read:
AID
LTER.
– — —
ULANCE &
T AID.
This was evidently half an inscription which had been cut off exactly in the middle. To the left there was no sign of lettering. He puzzled the letters for a few moments before he came to an understanding.
"Air-raid shelter. Ambulance and first aid!" he read.
So that explained the new electric fittings. It was one of those underground cellars which had been ferreted out by the Municipality or the Government for the shelter of the people in the neighbourhood during air-raids in the Great War. Evidently there was extensive accommodation here, since this was also an ambulance post. Faintly discernible beneath the letters was a painted white hand which pointed downward. What had happened to the other half of the inscription? Obviously it had been painted on the door leading into the first-aid room and as obviously that door had been removed and had been bricked up. In the light of this discovery he made a more careful inspection of the wall to the left. For the space of four feet the brickwork was new. He tapped it. It sounded hollow. Pressing his back against the opposite wall to give him leverage he put his foot against the new brickwork and pushed.
He knew that the class of workmanship which was put into this kind of job was not of the best, that only one layer of brick was applied, and it was a mechanical fact that pressure applied to the centre of new work would produce a collapse.
At the first push he felt the wall sag. Releasing his pressure it came back. This time he put both feet against the wall and bracing his shoulders he put every ounce of strength in his body into a mighty heave. The next second he was lying on his back. The greater part of the wall had collapsed. He was curious enough to examine the work he had demolished. It had evidently been done by amateurs, and the whitewash which had been thickly applied to the passage was explained.
A current of fresh air came to meet him as he stepped gingerly across the debris. A flight of six stone steps led down to a small room containing a sink and a water supply, two camp beds which had evidently been part of the ambulance equipment and which the new owners had not thought necessary to remove, and a broken chair. The room was still littered with the paraphernalia of first-aid. He found odd ends of bandages, empty medicine bottles and a broken glass measure on the shelf above the sink.
What interested him more was a door which he had not dared to hope he would find. It was bolted on his side, and when he had slid this back he discovered to his relief that it was not locked. He opened it carefully, first extinguishing his light. Beyond the door was darkness and he snapped back the light again. The room led to another, likewise empty. There were a number of shelves, a few old wine-bins, a score of empty bottles, but nothing else. At the far corner was yet another door, also bolted on the inside. Evidently van Heerden did not intend this part of the vault to be used.
He looked at the lock and found it was broken. He must be approaching the main workroom in this new factory, and it was necessary to proceed with caution. He took out his revolver, spun the cylinder and thrust it under his waistcoat, the butt ready to his hand. The drawing of the bolts was a long business. He could not afford to risk detection at this hour, and could only move them by a fraction of an inch at a time. Presently his work was done and he pulled the door cautiously.
Instantly there appeared between door and jamb a bright green line of light. He dare not move it any farther, for he heard now the shuffle of feet, and occasionally the sound of hollow voices, muffled and indistinguishable. In that light the opening of the door would be seen, perhaps by a dozen pair of eyes. For all he knew every man in that room might be facing his way. He had expected to hear the noise of machinery, but beyond the strangled voices, occasionally the click of glass against glass and the shuff-shuff-shuff of slippered feet crossing the floor, he heard nothing.
He pulled the door another quarter of an inch and glued his eye to the crack. At this angle he could only see one of the walls of the big vault and the end of a long vapour-lamp which stood in one of the cornices and which supplied the ghastly light. But presently he saw something which filled him with hope. Against the wall was a high shadow which even the overhead lamp did not wholly neutralize. It was an irregular shadow such as a stack of boxes might make, and it occurred to him that perhaps beyond his range of vision there was a barricade of empty cases which hid the door from the rest of the room.
He spent nearly three-quarters of an hour taking a bearing based upon the problematical position of the lights, the height and density of the box screen and then boldly and rapidly opened the door, stepped through and closed it behind him. His calculations had been accurate. He found himself in a room, the extent of which he could only conjecture. What, however, interested him mostly was the accuracy of his calculation that the door was hidden. An "L"-shaped stack of crates was piled within two feet of the ceiling, and formed a little lobby to anybody entering the vault the way Beale had come. They were stacked neatly and methodically, and with the exception of two larger packing-cases which formed the "corner stone" the barrier was made of a large number of small boxes about ten inches square.
There was a small step-ladder, evidently used by the person whose business it was to keep this stack in order. Beale lifted it noiselessly, planted it against the corner and mounted cautiously.
He saw a large, broad chamber, its groined roof supported by six squat stone pillars. Light came not only from mercurial lamps affixed to the ceiling, but from others suspended above the three rows of benches which ran the length of the room.
Mercurial lamps do not give a green light, as he knew, but a violet light, and the green effect was produced by shades of something which Beale thought was yellow silk, but which he afterwards discovered was tinted mica.
At intervals along the benches sat white-clad figures, their faces hidden behind rubber masks, their hands covered with gloves. In front of each man was a small microscope under a glass shade, a pair of balances and a rack filled with shallow porcelain trays. Evidently the work on which they were engaged did not endanger their eyesight, for the eye-pieces in the masks were innocent of protective covering, a circumstance which added to the hideous animal-like appearance of the men. They all looked alike in their uniform garb, but one figure alone Beale recognized. There was no mistaking the stumpy form and the big head of the Herr Professor, whose appearance in Oliva Cresswell's room had so terrified that young lady.
He had expected to see him, for he knew that this old German, poverty-stricken and ill-favoured, had been roped in by van Heerden, and Beale, who pitied the old man, had been engaged for a fortnight in trying to worm from the ex-professor of chemistry at the University of Heidelberg the location of van Heerden's secret laboratory. His efforts had been unsuccessful. There was a streak of loyalty in the old man, which had excited an irritable admiration in the detective but had produced nothing more.
Beale's eyes followed the benches and took in every detail. Some of the men were evidently engaged in tests, and remained all the time with their eyes glued to their microscopes. Others were looking into their porcelain trays and stirring the contents with glass rods, now and again transferring something to a glass slide which was placed on the microscope and earnestly examined.
Beale was conscious of a faint musty odour permeating the air, an indescribable earthy smell with a tang to it which made the delicate membrane of the nostrils smart and ache. He tied his handkerchief over his nose and mouth before he took another peep. Only part of the room was visible from his post of observation. What was going on immediately beneath the far side of the screen he could only conjecture. But he saw enough to convince him that this was the principal factory, from whence van Heerden was distilling the poison with which he planned humanity's death.
Some of the workers were filling and sealing small test-tubes with the contents of dishes. These tubes were extraordinarily delicate of structure, and Beale saw at least three crumble and shiver in the hands of the fillers.
Every bench held a hundred or so of these tubes and a covered gas-jet for heating the wax. The work went on methodically, with very little conversation between the masked figures (he saw that the masks covered the heads of the chemists so that not a vestige of hair showed), and only occasionally did one of them leave his seat and disappear through a door at the far end of the room, which apparently led to a canteen.
Evidently the fumes against which they were protected were not virulent, for some of the men stripped their masks as soon as they left their benches.
For half an hour he watched, and in the course of that time saw the process of filling the small boxes which formed his barrier and hiding-place with the sealed tubes. He observed the care with which the fragile tubes were placed in their beds of cotton wool, and had a glimpse of the lined interior of one of the boxes. He was on the point of lifting down a box to make a more thorough examination when he heard a quavering voice beneath him.
"What you do here—eh?"
Under the step-ladder was one of the workers who had slipped noiselessly round the corner of the pile and now stood, grotesque and menacing, his uncovered eyes glowering at the intruder, the black barrel of his Browning pistol covering the detective's heart.
"Don't shoot, colonel," said Beale softly. "I'll come down."
CHAPTER XXV
THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH
After all, it was for the best—van Heerden could almost see the hand of Providence in this deliverance of his enemy into his power. There must be a settlement with Beale, that play-acting drunkard, who had so deceived him at first.
Dr. van Heerden could admire the ingenuity of his enemy and could kill him. He was a man whose mental poise permitted the paradox of detached attachments. At first he had regarded Stanford Beale as a smart police officer, the sort of man whom Pinkerton and Burns turn out by the score. Shrewd, assertive, indefatigable, such men piece together the scattered mosaics of humdrum crimes, and by their mechanical patience produce for the satisfaction of courts sufficient of the piece to reveal the design. They figure in divorce suits, in financial swindles and occasionally in more serious cases.
Van Heerden knew instinctively their limitations and had too hastily placed Beale in a lower category than he deserved. Van Heerden came to his workroom by way of the buffet which he had established for the use of his employees. As he shut the steel door behind him he saw Milsom standing at the rough wooden sideboard which served as bar and table for the workers.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," said Milsom, and then quickly, as he read the other's face: "Anything wrong?"
"If the fact that the cleverest policeman in America or England is at present on the premises can be so described, then everything is wrong," said van Heerden, and helped himself to a drink.
"Here—in the laboratory?" demanded Milsom, fear in his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you," said the other, and gave the story as he had heard it from Hilda Glaum.
"He's in the old passage, eh?" said Milsom, thoughtfully, "well there's no reason why he should get out—alive."
"He won't," said the other.
"Was he followed—you saw nobody outside?"
"We have nothing to fear on that score. He's working on his own."
Milsom grunted.
"What are we going to do with him?"
"Gas him," said van Heerden, "he is certain to have a gun."
Milsom nodded.
"Wait until the men have gone. I let them go at three—a few at a time, and it wants half an hour to that. He can wait. He's safe where he is. Why didn't Hilda tell me? I never even saw her."
"She went straight up from the old passage—through the men's door—she didn't trust you probably."
Milsom smiled wryly. Though he controlled these works and knew half the doctor's secrets, he suspected that the quantity of van Heerden's trust was not greatly in excess of his girl's.
"We'll wait," he said again, "there's no hurry and, anyway, I want to see you about old man Heyler."
"Von Heyler? I thought you were rid of him?" said van Heerden in surprise, "that is the old fool that Beale has been after. He has been trying to suck him dry, and has had two interviews with him. I told you to send him to Deans Folly. Bridgers would have taken care of him."
"Bridgers can look after nothing," said Milsom.
His eyes roved along the benches and stopped at a worker at the farther end of the room.
"He's quiet to-night," he said, "that fellow is too full of himself for my liking. Earlier in the evening before I arrived he pulled a gun on Schultz. He's too full of gunplay that fellow—excuse the idiom, but I was in the same tailor's shop at Portland Gaol as Ned Garrand, the Yankee bank-smasher."
Van Heerden made a gesture of impatience.
"About old Heyler," Milsom went on, "I know you think he's dangerous, so I've kept him here. There's a room where he can sleep, and he can take all the exercise he wants at night. But the old fool is restless—he's been asking me what is the object of his work."
"He's difficult. Twice he has nearly betrayed me. As I told you in the car, I gave him some experimental work to do and he brought the result to me—that was the sample which fell into Beale's hands."
"Mr. Beale is certainly a danger," said Milsom thoughtfully.
Van Heerden made a move toward the laboratory, but Milsom's big hand detained him.
"One minute, van Heerden," he said, "whilst you're here you'd better decide—when do we start dismantling? I've got to find some excuse to send these fellows away."
Van Heerden thought.
"In two days," he said, "that will give you time to clear. You can send the men—well, send them to Scotland, some out-of-the-way place where news doesn't travel. Tell them we're opening a new factory, and put them up at the local hotel."
Milsom inclined his head.
"That sounds easy," he said, "I could take charge of them until the time came to skip. One can get a boat at Greenock."
"I shall miss you," said van Heerden frankly, "you were necessary to me, Milsom. You're the driving force I wanted, and the only man of my class and calibre I can ever expect to meet, one who would go into this business with me."
They had reached the big vault and van Heerden stood regarding the scene of mental activity with something approaching complacency.
"There is a billion in process of creation," he said.
"I could never think in more than six figures," said Milsom, "and it is only under your cheering influence that I can stretch to seven. I am going to live in the Argentine, van Heerden. A house on a hill–"
The other shivered, but Milsom went on.
"A gorgeous palace of a house, alive with servants. A string band, a perfectly equipped laboratory where I can indulge my passion for research, a high-powered auto, wine of the rarest—ah!"
Van Heerden looked at his companion curiously.
"That appeals to you, does it? For me, the control of finance. Endless schemes of fortune; endless smashings of rivals, railways, ships, great industries juggled and shuffled—that is the life I plan."
"Fine!" said the other laconically.
They walked to a bench and the worker looked up and took off his mask.
He was an old man, and grinned toothlessly at van Heerden.
"Good evening, Signor Doctor," he said in Italian. "Science is long and life is short, signor."
He chuckled and, resuming his mask, returned to his work, ignoring the two men as though they had no existence.
"A little mad, old Castelli," said Milsom, "that's his one little piece—what crooked thing has he done?"
"None that I know," said the other carelessly; "he lost his wife and two daughters in the Messina earthquake. I picked him up cheap. He's a useful chemist."
They walked from bench to bench, but van Heerden's eyes continuously strayed to the door, behind which he pictured a caged Stanford Beale, awaiting his doom. The men were beginning to depart now. One by one they covered their instruments and their trays, slipped off their masks and overalls and disappeared through the door, upon which van Heerden's gaze was so often fixed. Their exit, however, would not take them near Beale's prison. A few paces along the corridor was another passage leading to the yard above, and it was by this way that Hilda Glaum had sped to the doctor's room.
Presently all were gone save one industrious worker, who sat peering through the eye-piece of his microscope, immovable.
"That's our friend Bridgers," said Milsom, "he's all lit up with the alkaloid of Enythroxylon Coca—– Well, Bridgers, nearly finished?"
"Huh!" grunted the man without turning.
Milsom shrugged his shoulders.
"We must let him finish what he's doing. He is quite oblivious to the presence of anybody when he has these fits of industry. By the way, the passing of our dear enemy"—he jerked his head to the passage door—"will make no change in your plans?"
"How?"
"You have no great anxiety to marry the widow?"
"None," said the doctor.
"And she isn't a widow yet."
It was not Milsom who spoke, but the man at the bench, the industrious worker whose eye was still at the microscope.
"Keep your comments to yourself," said van Heerden angrily, "finish your work and get out."
"I've finished."
The worker rose slowly and loosening the tapes of his mask pulled it off.
"My name is Beale," he said calmly, "I think we've met before. Don't move, Milsom, unless you want to save living-expenses—I'm a fairly quick shot when I'm annoyed."
Stanford Beale pushed back the microscope and seated himself on the edge of the bench.
"You addressed me as Bridgers," he said, "you will find Mr. Bridgers in a room behind that stack of boxes. The fact is he surprised me spying and was all for shooting me up, but I induced him to come into my private office, so to speak, and the rest was easy—he dopes, doesn't he? He hadn't the strength of a rat. However, that is all beside the point; Dr. van Heerden, what have you to say against my arresting you out of hand on a conspiracy charge?"
Van Heerden smiled contemptuously.
"There are many things I can say," he said. "In the first place, you have no authority to arrest anybody. You're not a police officer but only an American amateur."
"American, yes; but amateur, no," said Beale gently. "As to the authority, why I guess I can arrest you first and get the authority after."
"On what charge?" demanded Milsom, "there is nothing secret about this place, except Doctor van Heerden's association with it—a professional man is debarred from mixing in commercial affairs. Is it a crime to run a–"
He looked to van Heerden.
"A germicide factory," said van Heerden promptly.
"Suppose I know the character of this laboratory?" asked Beale quietly.
"Carry that kind of story to the police and see what steps they will take," said van Heerden scornfully. "My dear Mr. Beale, as I have told you once before, you have been reading too much exciting detective fiction."
"Very likely," he said, "but anyhow the little story that enthralls me just now is called the Green Terror, and I'm looking to you to supply a few of the missing pages. And I think you'll do it."
The doctor was lighting a cigarette, and he looked at the other over the flaring match with a gleam of malicious amusement in his eyes.
"Your romantic fancies would exasperate me, but for your evident sincerity. Having stolen my bride you seem anxious to steal my reputation," he said mockingly.
"That," said Beale, slipping off the bench and standing, hands on hips, before the doctor, "would take a bit of finding. I tell you, van Heerden, that I'm going to call your bluff. I shall place this factory in the hands of the police, and I am going to call in the greatest scientists in England, France and America, to prove the charge I shall make against you on the strength of this!"
He held up between his forefinger and thumb a crystal tube, filled to its seal with something that looked like green sawdust.
"The world, the sceptical world, shall know the hell you are preparing for them." Stanford Beale's voice trembled with passion and his face was dark with the thought of a crime so monstrous that even the outrageous treatment of a woman who was more to him than all the world was for the moment obliterated from his mind in the contemplation of the danger which threatened humanity.
"You say that the police and even the government of this country will dismiss my charge as being too fantastic for belief. You shall have the satisfaction of knowing that you are right. They think I am mad—but I will convince them! In this tube lies the destruction of all your fondest dreams, van Heerden. To realize those dreams you have murdered two men. For these you killed John Millinborn and the man Prédeaux. But you shall not–"
"Bang!"
The explosion roared thunderously in the confined space of the vault. Beale felt the wind of the bullet and turned, pistol upraised.