Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/158

154 "This place is getting right on my nerves," he went on, "couldn't I go to London? I'm stagnating here. Why, some of the stuff I cultivated the other day wouldn't react. Isn't that so, Milsom? I get so dull in this hole that all bugs look alike to me."

Van Heerden glanced at the man who was addressed as Dr. Milsom and the latter nodded.

"Let him go back," he said, "I'll look after him. How's the lady?" asked Milsom when they were alone.

The other made a gesture and Dr. Milsom nodded.

"It's good stuff," he said. "I used to give it to lunatics in the days of long ago."

Van Heerden did not ask him what those days were. He never pryed too closely into the early lives of his associates, but Milsom's history was public property. Four years before he had completed a "life sentence" of fifteen years for a crime which had startled the world in '99.

"How are things generally?" he asked.

Van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.

"For the first time I am getting nervous," he said. "It isn't so much the fear of Beale that rattles me, but the sordid question of money. The expenses are colossal and continuous."

"Hasn't your—Government"—Milsom balked at the word—"haven't your friends abroad moved in the matter yet?"

Van Heerden shook his head.

"I am very hopeful there," he said. "I have been watching the papers very closely, especially the Agrarian papers, and, unless I am mistaken, there is a decided movement in the direction of support. But I can't depend on that. The marriage must go through to-morrow."

"White is getting nervous, too," he went on. "He is pestering me about the money I owe him, or rather the syndicate owes him. He's on the verge of ruin."

Milsom made a little grimace.

"Then he'll squeal," he said, "those kind of people always do. You'll have to keep him quiet. You say the marriage is coming off to-morrow?"

"I have notified the parson," said van Heerden. "I