Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/61

Rh "Ungrateful fool!" said van Heerden. "I probably saved your life—hid you in Eastbourne, took you to London, whilst the police were searching for you."

"For me!" snarled the other. "A low trick, by the Everlasting Virtues!"

"Don't be an idiot—whose word would they have taken, yours or mine? Now let's talk—on Thursday next you sail for Quebec"

He detailed his instructions at length and the man called Jackson, mellowed by repeated visits to the decanter, listened and even approved.

On the other side of the hallway, behind the closed door, Oliva Cresswell, her dining-table covered with papers and books, was working hard.

She was particularly anxious to show Mr. Beale a sample of her work in the morning and was making a fair copy of what she had described to him that afternoon as her "hotel list."

"They are such queer names," she said; "there is one called Scobbs of Red Horse Valley—Scobbs!"

He had laughed.

"Strangely enough, I know Mr. Scobbs, who is quite a personage in that part of the world. He owns a chain of hotels in Western Canada. You mustn't leave him out."

Even had she wished to, or even had the name been overlooked once, she could not have escaped it. For Jonas Scobbs was the proprietor of Scobbs' Hotel in Falling Star City; of the Bellevue in Snakefence, of the Palace Hotel in Portage.

After awhile it began to lose its novelty and she accepted the discovery of unsuspected properties of Mr. Scobbs as inevitable.

She filled in the last ruled sheet and blotted it, gathered the sheets together and fastened them with a clip.

She yawned as she rose and realized that her previous night's sleep had been fitful.

She wondered as she began to undress if she would dream of Scobbs or—no, she didn't want to dream of big-headed men with white faces, and the thought awoke a doubt