Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/238

234 it is, it will succeed. And now," he said with a smile, "time is short and your preparations must be of the briefest. I will save you the trouble of asking questions by telling you that I am going to take you along with me. I certainly cannot afford to leave you. Get your coat."

With a shrug she walked past him to the bedroom and he followed.

"Are we going far?" she asked.

There was no tremor in her voice and she felt remarkably self-possessed.

"That you will discover," said he.

"I am not asking out of idle curiosity, but I want to know whether I ought to take a bag."

"Perhaps it would be better," he said.

She carried the little attaché case back to the sitting-room.

"You have no objection to my taking a little light reading-matter?" she asked contemptuously. "I am afraid you are not a very entertaining companion, Dr. van Heerden."

"Excellent girl," said van Heerden cheerfully. "Take anything you like."

She slipped a book from the shelf and nearly betrayed herself by an involuntary exclamation as she felt its weight. "You are not very original in your methods," she said, "this is the second time you have spirited me off."

"The gaols of England, as your new-found friend Milsom will tell you, are filled with criminals who departed from the beaten tracks," said van Heerden. "Walk out into the corridor and turn to the right. I will be close behind you. A little way along you will discover a narrow passage which leads to the service staircase. Go down that. I am sure you believe me when I say that I will kill you if you attempt to make any signal or scream or appeal for help."

She did not answer. It was because of this knowledge and this fear, which was part of her youthful equipment—for violent death is a very terrible prospect to the young and the healthy—that she obeyed him at all.

They walked down the stone stairs, through an untidy,