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 attaché 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 of a hunter watch, and this he pledged. A pawnbroker's is the safest of safe deposits. Searching for clues, suppose the police had detected his preparations, the pledged ticket might have been easily overlooked."
Kitson was looking at him with an expression of amazed indignation. Here was a man who had lost his wife, and Kitson believed that this young detective loved the girl as few women are loved; but in the passion of the chase, in the production of a new problem, he was absorbed to the exclusion of all other considerations in the greater game.
Yet he did Beale an injustice if he only knew, for the thought of Oliva's new peril ran through all his speculations, his rapid deductions, his lightning plans.
"Miss Cresswell found the ticket and probably extracted it as a curiosity. These things are kept in little envelopes, aren't they, McNorton?"
The police chief nodded.
"That was it, then. She took it out and left the envelope behind, and van Heerden did not discover his loss until he went to find the voucher to give Milsom the code. Don't you remember? In the first place he said he couldn't give him the code until after ten o'clock, which is probably the hour the pawnbrokers open for business."
McNorton nodded again.
"Then do you remember that Milsom said that the code was not irredeemably lost and that van Heerden knew where it was. In default of finding the ticket he decided to burgle the pawnbroker's, and that burglary is going through to-night."
"But he could have obtained a duplicate of the ticket," said McNorton.
"How?" asked Beale quickly.
"By going before a magistrate and swearing an affidavit."
"In his own name," said Beale, "you see, he couldn't do that. It would mean walking into the lion's den. No, burglary was his only chance."
"But what of Oliva?" said Kitson impatiently, "I tell you, Beale, I am not big enough or stoical enough to think outside of that girl's safety."
Beale swung round at him.
"You don't think I've forgotten that, do you?" he said in a low voice. "You don't think that has been out of my mind?" His face was tense and drawn. "I think, I believe that Oliva is safe," he said quietly. "I believe that Oliva and not any of us here will deliver van Heerden to justice."
"Are you mad?" asked Kitson in astonishment.
"I am very sane. Come here!"
He gripped the old lawyer by the arm and led him back to the girl's room.
"Look," he said, and pointed.
"What do you mean, the bookshelf?"
Beale nodded.
"Half an hour ago I gave Oliva a book," he said, "that book is no longer there."
"But in the name of Heaven how can a book save her?" demanded the exasperated Kitson.
Stanford Beale did not answer.
"Yes, yes, she's safe. I know she's safe," he said. "If Oliva is the girl I think she is then I see van Heerden's finish."
CHAPTER XXXI
A CORN CHANDLER'S BILL
The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling, and Beale and McNorton alighted.
It was a main street and was almost deserted. Beale looked up at the windows. They were dark. He knocked at the side-entrance of the shop, and presently the two men were joined by a policeman.
"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at Highgate."
He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A nightfarer who had been in the shade on the opposite side of the street came across and volunteered information.
He had seen another car drive up and a gentleman had alighted. He had opened the door with a key and gone in. There was nothing suspicious about him. He was "quite a gentleman, and was in evening-dress." The constable thought it was one of the partners of Rosenblaum in convivial and resplendent garb. He had been in the house ten minutes then had come out again, locking the door behind him, and had driven off just before Beale's car had arrived.
It was not until half an hour later that an agitated little man brought by the police from Highgate admitted the two men.
There was no need to make a long search. The moment the light was switched on in the shop Beale made his discovery. On the broad counter lay a sheet of paper and a little heap of silver coins. He swept the money aside and read:
"For the redemption of one silver hunter, 10s. 6d."
It was signed in the characteristic handwriting that Beale knew so well "Van Heerden, M.D."
The two men looked at one another.
"What do you make of that?" asked McNorton.
Beale carried the paper to the light and examined it, and McNorton went on:
"He's a pretty cool fellow. I suppose he had the money and the message all ready for our benefit."
Beale shook his head.
"On the contrary," he said, "this was done on the spur of the moment. A piece of bravado which occurred to him when he had the watch. Look at this paper. You can imagine him searching his pocket for a piece of waste paper and taking the first that came to his hand. It is written in ink with the pawnbroker's own pen. The inkwell is open," he lifted up the pen, "the nib is still wet," he said.
McNorton took the paper from his hands.
It was a bill from a corn-chandler's at Horsham, the type of bill that was sent in days of war economy which folded over and constituted its own envelope. It was addressed to "J. B. Harden, Esq." ("That was the alias he used when he took the wine vaults at Paddington," explained McNorton) and had been posted about a week before. Attached to the bottom of the account, which was for £3 10s., was a little slip calling attention to the fact that "this account had probably been overlooked."
Beale's finger traced the item for which the bill was rendered, and McNorton uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Curious, isn't it?" said Beale, as he folded the paper and put it away in his pocket, "how these very clever men always make some trifling error which brings them to justice. I don't know how many great schemes I have seen brought to nothing through some such act of folly as this, some piece of theatrical bravado which benefited the criminal nothing at all."
"Good gracious," said McNorton wonderingly, "of course, that's what he is going to do. I never thought of that. It is in the neighbourhood of Horsham we must look for him, and I think if we can get one of the Messrs. Billingham out of bed in a couple of hours' time we shall do a good night's work."
They went outside and again questioned the policeman. He remembered the car turning round and going back the way it had come. It had probably taken one of the innumerable side-roads which lead from the main thoroughfare, and in this way they had missed it.
"I want to go to the 'Megaphone' office first," said Beale. "I have some good friends on that paper and I am curious to know how bad the markets are. The night cables from New York should be coming in by now."
In his heart was a sickening fear which he dared not express. What would the morrow bring forth? If this one man's cupidity and hate should succeed in releasing the terror upon the world, what sort of a world would it leave? Through the windows of the car he could see the placid policemen patrolling the streets, caught a glimpse of other cars brilliantly illuminated bearing their laughing men and women back to homes, who were ignorant of the monstrous danger which threatened their security and life.
He passed the façades of great commercial mansions which in a month's time might but serve to conceal the stark ruin within.
To him it was a night of tremendous tragedy, and for the second time in his life in the numbness induced by the greater peril and the greater anxiety he failed to wince at the thought of the danger in which Oliva stood.
Indeed, analysing his sensations she seemed to him on this occasion less a victim than a fellow-worker and he found a strange comfort in that thought of partnership.
The Megaphone buildings blazed with light when the car drew up to the door, messenger-boys were hurrying through the swing-doors, the two great elevators were running up and down without pause. The grey editor with a gruff voice threw over a bundle of flimsies.
"Here are the market reports," he growled, "they are not very encouraging."
Beale read them and whistled, and the editor eyed him keenly.
"Well, what do you make of it?" he asked the detective. "Wheat at a shilling a pound already. God knows what it's going to be to-morrow!"
"Any other news?" asked Beale.
"We have asked Germany to explain why she has prohibited the export of wheat and to give us a reason for the stocks she holds and the steps she has taken during the past two months to accumulate reserves."
"An ultimatum?"
"Not exactly an ultimatum. There's nothing to go to war about. The Government has mobilized the fleet and the French Government has partially mobilized her army. The question is," he said, "would war ease the situation?"
Beale shook his head.
"The battle will not be fought in the field," he said, "it will be fought right here in London, in all your great towns, in Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Cardiff. It will be fought in New York and in a thousand townships between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and if the German scheme comes off we shall be beaten before a shot is fired."
"What does it mean?" asked the editor, "why is everybody buying wheat so frantically? There is no shortage. The harvests in the United States and Canada are good."
"There will be no harvests," said Beale solemnly; and the journalist gaped at him.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE END OF VAN HEERDEN
Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleasant travelling-companion. When a man takes a girl, against her will, from a pleasant suite at the best hotel in London, compels her at the peril of death to accompany him on a motor-car ride in the dead of the night, and when his offence is a duplication of one which had been committed less than a week before, he not unnaturally anticipates tears, supplications, or in the alternative a frigid and unapproachable silence.
To his amazement Oliva was extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros., and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had been taciturn and uncommunicative was in quite an amiable mood.
"I used to think," she said, "that motor-car abductions were the invention of sensational writers, but you seem to make a practice of it. You are not very original, Dr. van Heerden. I think I've told you that before."
He smiled in the darkness as the car sped smoothly through the deserted streets.
"I must plead guilty to being rather unoriginal," he said, "but I promise you that this little adventure shall not end as did the last."
"It can hardly do that," she laughed, "I can only be married once whilst Mr. Beale is alive."
"I forgot you were married," he said suddenly, then after a pause, "I suppose you will divorce him?"
"Why?" she asked innocently.
"But you're not fond of that fellow, are you?"
"Passionately," she said calmly, "he is my ideal."
The reply took away his breath and certainly silenced him.
"How is this adventure to end?" she demanded. "Are you going to maroon me on a desert island, or are you taking me to Germany?"
"How did you know I am trying to get to Germany?" he asked sharply.
"Oh, Mr. Beale thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he reckoned that he would catch you somewhere near the coast."
"He did, did he?" said the other calmly. "I shall deny him that pleasure. I don't intend taking you to Germany. Indeed, it is not my intention to detain you any longer than is necessary."
"For which I am truly grateful," she smiled, "but why detain me at all?"
"That is a stupid question to ask when I am sure you have no doubt in your mind as to why it is necessary to keep you close to me until I have finished my work. I think I told you some time ago," he went on, "that I had a great scheme. The other day you called me a Hun, by which I suppose you meant that I was a German. It is perfectly true that I am a German and I am a patriotic German. To me even in these days of his degradation the Kaiser is still little less than a god."
His voice quivered a little, and the girl was struck dumb with wonder that a man of such intelligence, of such a wide outlook, of such modernity, should hold to views so archaic.
"Your country ruined Germany. You have sucked us dry. To say that I hate England and hate America—for you Anglo-Saxons are one in your soulless covetousness—is to express my feelings mildly."
"But what is your scheme?" she asked.
"Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics. America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."
"But how?" she asked, bewildered.
"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is stored in Germany."
"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's wheat comes from America and from Russia."
"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the American wheat—there will be no American wheat."
And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English. The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.
So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:
"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"
"What—what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you thanking God about?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing." She was her eager, animated self. "Tell me some more. It is a wonderful story. It is true, is it not?"
"True?" he laughed harshly, "you shall see how true it is. You shall see the world lie at the feet of German science. To-morrow the word will go forth. Look!" He clicked on a little electric light and held out his hand. In his palm lay a silver watch.
"I told you there was a code" (she was dimly conscious that he had spoken of a code but she had been so occupied by her own thoughts that she had not caught all that he had said). "That code was in this watch. Look!"
He pressed a knob and the case flew open. Pasted to the inside of the case was a circular piece of paper covered with fine writing.
"When you found that ticket you had the code in your hands," he chuckled; "if you or your friends had the sense to redeem that watch I could not have sent to-morrow the message of German liberation! See, it is very simple!" He pointed with his finger and held the watch half-way to the roof that the light might better reveal the wording. "This word means 'Proceed.' It will go to all my chief agents. They will transmit it by telegram to hundreds of centres. By Thursday morning great stretches of territory where the golden corn was waving so proudly to-day will be blackened wastes. By Saturday the world will confront its sublime catastrophe."
"But why have you three words?" she asked huskily.
"We Germans provide against all contingencies," he said, "we leave nothing to chance. We are not gamblers. We work on lines of scientific accuracy. The second word is to tell my agents to suspend operations until they hear from me. The third word means 'Abandon the scheme for this year'! We must work with the markets. A more favourable opportunity might occur—with so grand a conception it is necessary that we should obtain the maximum results for our labours."
He snapped the case of the watch and put it back in his pocket, turned out the light and settled himself back with a sigh of content.
"You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless–" A thought struck him, and he frowned.
"Unless–?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her assurance.
"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful fellow–"
"You wouldn't?" she gasped.
"Why not?" he said coolly. "I don't want you. Bridgers thinks that you are beautiful."
"Is he a Hun, too?" she asked, and he jerked round toward her.
"If Bridgers wants you he shall have you," he said harshly.
She knew she had made a mistake. There was no sense in antagonizing him, the more especially so since she had not yet learnt all that she wanted to know.
"I think your scheme is horrible," she said after awhile, "the wheat destruction scheme, I mean, not Bridgers. But it is a very great one."
The man was susceptible to flattery, for he became genial again.
"It is the greatest scheme that has ever been known to science. It is the most colossal crime—I suppose they will call it a crime—that has ever been committed."
"But how are you going to get your code word away? The telegraphs are in the hands of the Government and I think you will find it difficult even if you have a secret wireless."
"Wireless, bah!" he said scornfully. "I never expected to send it by telegraph with or without wires. I have a much surer way, fräulein, as you will see."
"But how will you escape?" she asked.
"I shall leave England to-morrow, soon after daybreak," he replied, with assurance, "by aeroplane, a long-distance flying-machine will land on my Sussex farm which will have British markings—indeed, it is already in England, and I and my good Bridgers will pass your coast without trouble."
He peered out of the window.
"This is Horsham, I think," he said, as they swept through what appeared to the girl to be a square. "That little building on the left is the railway station. You will see the signal lamps in a moment. My farm is about five miles down the Shoreham Road."
He was in an excellent temper as they passed through the old town and mounted the hill which leads to Shoreham, was politeness itself when the car had turned off the main road and had bumped over cart tracks to the door of a large building.
"This is your last escapade, Miss Cresswell, or Mrs. Beale I suppose I should call you," he said jovially, as he pushed her before him into a room where supper had been laid for two. "You see, you were not expected, but you shall have Bridgers'. It will be daylight in two hours," he said inconsequently, "you must have some wine."
She shook her head with a smile, and he laughed as if the implied suspicion of her refusal was the best joke in the world.
"Nein, nein, little friend," he said, "I shall not doctor you again. My days of doctoring have passed."
She had expected to find the farm in occupation, but apparently they were the only people there. The doctor had opened the door himself with a key, and no servant had appeared, nor apparently did he expect them to appear. She learnt afterwards that there were two farm servants, an old man and his wife, who lived in a cottage on the estate and came in the daytime to do the housework and prepare a cold supper against their master's coming.
Bridgers did not make his appearance. Apparently he was staying with his car. About three o'clock in the morning, when the first streaks of grey were showing in the sky, van Heerden rose to go in search of his assistant. Until then he had not ceased to talk of himself, of his scheme, of his great plan, of his early struggles, of his difficulties in persuading members of his Government to afford him the assistance he required. As he turned to the door she checked him with a word:
"I am immensely interested," she said, "but still, you have not told me how you intend to send your message."
"It is simple," he said, and beckoned to her.
They passed out of the house into the chill sweet dawn, made a half-circuit of the farm and came to a courtyard surrounded on three sides by low buildings. He opened a door to reveal another door covered with wire netting.