Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/256

252 and was giggling and cursing in the same breath. He wrenched the pistol from her hand and threw it on the table.

"You fool! You fool!" he shouted, "the safety-catch! You didn't put it down!"

She could have wept with anger and mortification. Beale had put the catch of the weapon at safety, not realizing that she did not understand the mechanism of it, and van Heerden in one lightning glance had seen his advantage.

"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your husband something which he will not touch!"

He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed "Bridgers!"

Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.

"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It is"

"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"

He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these was Beale.

"It's no use your shouting for Bridgers because Bridgers is on the way to the jug," said McNorton. "I have a warrant for you, van Heerden."

The doctor turned with a howl of rage, snatched up the pistol which lay on the table, and thumbed down the safety-catch.

Beale and McNorton fired together, so that it seemed like a single shot that thundered through the room. Van Heerden slid forward, and fell sprawling across the table.

It was the Friday morning, and Beale stepped briskly through the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton, and declining the elevator went up the stairs two at a time. He burst into the room where Kitson and the girl were standing by the window.

"Wheat prices are tumbling down," he said, "the message worked."

"Thank Heaven for that!" said Kitson. "Then van Heerden's code message telling his gang to stop operations reached its destination!"