Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/205

Rh A string band, a perfectly equipped laboratory where I can indulge my passion for research, a high-powered auto, wine of the rarest—ah!"

Van Heerden looked at his companion curiously.

"That appeals to you, does it? For me, the control of finance. Endless schemes of fortune; endless smashings of rivals, railways, ships, great industries juggled and shuffled—that is the life I plan."

"Fine!" said the other laconically.

They walked to a bench and the worker looked up and took off his mask.

He was an old man, and grinned toothlessly at van Heerden.

"Good evening, Signor Doctor," he said in Italian. "Science is long and life is short, signor."

He chuckled and, resuming his mask, returned to his work, ignoring the two men as though they had no existence.

"A little mad, old Castelli," said Milsom, "that's his one little piece—what crooked thing has he done?"

"None that I know," said the other carelessly; "he lost his wife and two daughters in the Messina earthquake. I picked him up cheap. He's a useful chemist."

They walked from bench to bench, but van Heerden's eyes continuously strayed to the door, behind which he pictured a caged Stanford Beale, awaiting his doom. The men were beginning to depart now. One by one they covered their instruments and their trays, slipped off their masks and overalls and disappeared through the door, upon which van Heerden's gaze was so often fixed. Their exit, however, would not take them near Beale's prison. A few paces along the corridor was another passage leading to the yard above, and it was by this way that Hilda Glaum had sped to the doctor's room.

Presently all were gone save one industrious worker, who sat peering through the eye-piece of his microscope, immovable.

"That's our friend Bridgers," said Milsom, "he's all lit up with the alkaloid of Enythroxylon Coca Well, Bridgers, nearly finished?"

"Huh!" grunted the man without turning.