Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/203

Rh, "well there's no reason why he should get out—alive."

"He won't," said the other.

"Was he followed—you saw nobody outside?"

"We have nothing to fear on that score. He's working on his own."

Milsom grunted.

"What are we going to do with him?"

"Gas him," said van Heerden, "he is certain to have a gun."

Milsom nodded.

"Wait until the men have gone. I let them go at three—a few at a time, and it wants half an hour to that. He can wait. He's safe where he is. Why didn't Hilda tell me? I never even saw her."

"She went straight up from the old passage—through the men's door—she didn't trust you probably."

Milsom smiled wryly. Though he controlled these works and knew half the doctor's secrets, he suspected that the quantity of van Heerden's trust was not greatly in excess of his girl's.

"We'll wait," he said again, "there's no hurry and, anyway, I want to see you about old man Heyler."

"Von Heyler? I thought you were rid of him?" said van Heerden in surprise, "that is the old fool that Beale has been after. He has been trying to suck him dry, and has had two interviews with him. I told you to send him to Deans Folly. Bridgers would have taken care of him."

"Bridgers can look after nothing," said Milsom.

His eyes roved along the benches and stopped at a worker at the farther end of the room.

"He's quiet to-night," he said, "that fellow is too full of himself for my liking. Earlier in the evening before I arrived he pulled a gun on Schultz. He's too full of gun-play that fellow—excuse the idiom, but I was in the same tailor's shop at Portland Gaol as Ned Garrand, the Yankee bank-smasher."

Van Heerden made a gesture of impatience.

"About old Heyler," Milsom went on, "I know you