Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/167

Rh Milsom had walked round the table to the window, and it was he who checked the doctor as he was leaving the room.

"Doctor," he said, "come here."

Van Heerden detected a strain of anxiety in the other's voice.

"What is it?" he said.

"Do you hear somebody speaking?"

They stood by the window and listened intently.

"Come with me," said the doctor, and he walked noiselessly and ascended the stairs, followed more slowly by his heavier companion.

QUARTER of a mile from Deans Folly a motor-car was halted on the side of a hill overlooking the valley in which van Heerden's house was set.

"That's the house," said Beale, consulting the map, "and that wall that runs along the road is the wall the tramp described."

"You seem to put a lot of faith in the statement of a man suffering from delirium tremens," said Parson Homo dryly.

"He was not suffering from delirium tremens this morning. You didn't see him?" Homo shook his head.

"I was in London fixing the preliminaries of your nuptials," he said sarcastically. "It may be the house," he admitted; "where is the entrance?"

"There's a road midway between here and the river and a private road leading off," said Beale; "the gate I presume, is hidden somewhere in those bushes."

He raised a pair of field-glasses and focused them.