Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/250

246 "Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics. America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."

"But how?" she asked, bewildered.

"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is stored in Germany."

"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's wheat comes from America and from Russia."

"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the American wheat—there will be no American wheat."

And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English. The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.

So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:

"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"

"What—what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you thanking God about?"