Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/192

188 again until you sent for her. She asked when you leave."

"That she must not know, Gregory—please remember."

He withdrew his head, tapped at the window and the car moved on.

"There's another problem for you, van Heerden," said Milsom with a chuckle.

"What?" demanded the other sharply.

"Hilda Glaum. I've only seen the girl twice or so, but she adores you. What are you going to do with her?"

Van Heerden lit a cigarette, and in the play of the flame Milsom saw him smiling.

"She comes on after me," he said, "by which I mean that I have a place for her in my country, but not"

"Not the sort of place she expects," finished Milsom bluntly. "You may have trouble there."

"Bah!"

"That's foolish," said Milsom, "the convict establishments of England are filled with men who said 'Bah' when they were warned against jealous women. If," he went on, "if you could eliminate jealousy from the human outfit, you'd have half the prison warders of England unemployed."

"Hilda is a good girl," said the other complacently, "she is also a good German girl, and in Germany women know their place in the system. She will be satisfied with what I give her."

"There aren't any women like that," said Milsom with decision, and the subject dropped.

The car stopped near the Marble Arch to put down Milsom, and van Heerden continued his journey alone, reaching his apartments a little before midnight. As he stepped out of the car a man strolled across the street. It was Beale's watcher. Van Heerden looked round with a smile, realizing the significance of this nonchalant figure, and passed through the lobby and up the stairs.

He had left his lights full on for the benefit of watchers, and the hall-lamp glowed convincingly through the fan-light. Beale's flat was in darkness, and a slip of paper fastened to the door gave his address.