Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/142

138 She understood now. She and Hilda Glaum were of about the same build, and she was mistaken for Hilda by this bemused man who had, in all probability, never seen the other girl face to face.

"What made you run away?" he asked suddenly; but with a sudden resolve she brought him back to the subject he had started to discuss.

"What is the use of my telling you?" she asked. "You know as much as I."

"Only bits," he replied eagerly, "but I don't know van Heerden's game. I know why he's marrying this other girl, everybody knows that. When is the wedding?"

"What other girl?" she asked. "Cresswell or Prédeaux, whatever she calls herself," said Bridgers carelessly. "She was a store girl, wasn't she?"

"But"—she tried to speak calmly—"why do you think he wants to marry her?"

He laughed softly.

"Don't be silly," he said, "you can't fool me. Everybody knows she's worth a million."

"Worth a million?" she gasped.

"Worth a million." He smacked his lips and fumbled for the little box in his waistcoat pocket. "Try a sniff—you'll know what it feels like to be old man Millinborn's heiress."

There was a sound in the hall below and he turned with an exaggerated start (she thought it theatrical but could not know of the jangled nerves of the drug-soddened man which magnified all sound to an intensity which was almost painful).

He opened the door and slid out—and did not close the door behind him.

Swiftly she followed, and as she reached the landing saw his head disappear down the stairs. She was in a blind panic; a thousand formless terrors gripped her and turned her resolute soul to water. She could have screamed her relief when she saw that the sliding door was half-open—the man had not stopped to close it—and she passed through and down the first flight. He had vanished before