Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/172

168 I will explain a few things to you. You need not trouble about your—wife. She will not be harmed."

Beale, revolver still in hand, made his way to the door and was admitted.

"You had better come along, Homo," he said, "we may have to bluff this out."

Van Heerden was waiting for him in the hall and invited him no farther.

"You are perfectly at liberty to take away your wife," said van Heerden; "she will probably explain to you that I have treated her with every consideration. Here she is."

Oliva was descending the stairs with slow, deliberate steps.

"I might have been very angry with you," van Heerden went on, with that insolent drawl of his; "happily I do not find it any longer necessary to marry Miss Cresswell. I was just explaining to this gentleman"—he pointed to the pallid young curate in the background—"when your voices reached me. Nevertheless, I think it only right to tell you that your marriage is not a legal one, though I presume you are provided with a special licence."

"Why is it illegal?" asked Beale.

He wondered if Parson Homo had been recognized.

"In the first place because it was not conducted in the presence of witnesses," said van Heerden.

It was Homo who laughed.

"I am afraid that would make it illegal but for the fact that you witnessed the ceremony by your own confession, and so presumably did your fat friend behind you."

Mr. Milsom scowled.

"You were always a bitter dog to me, Parson," he said, " but I can give you a reason why it's illegal," he said triumphantly. " That man is Parson Homo, a well-known crook who was kicked out of the Church fifteen years ago. I worked alongside him in Portland."

Homo smiled crookedly.

"You are right up to a certain point, Milsom," he said, "but you are wrong in one essential. By a curious