Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/65

Rh She handed it to him, and he read it.

"From Brandan, the perfumers. They wouldn't be in it, but we had better make sure."

He walked to the telephone and gave a number, and the girl heard him speaking in a low tone to somebody at the other end. Presently he put down the receiver and walked back, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"They know nothing about this act of generosity," he said.

By this time she had removed her coat and hat and hung them up, and had taken her place at her desk. She sat with her elbows on the blotting-pad, her chin on her clasped hands, looking up at him.

"I don't think it's fair that things should be kept from me any longer," she said. "Many mysterious things have happened in the past few days, and since they have all directly affected me, I think I am entitled to some sort of explanation."

"I think you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would have been covered from head to foot in a rather alarming and irritating rash."

She gasped.

"But who dared to send me this?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows? But first let me ask you this. Miss Cresswell. Suppose to-night when you had looked at yourself in the glass you had discovered your face was covered with red blotches and, on further examination, you found your arms and, indeed, the whole of your body similarly disfigured, what would you have done?"

She thought for a moment.

"Why, of course, I should have sent for the doctor."

"Which doctor?" he asked carelessly.

"Doctor van Heerden—oh!" She looked at him resentfully. "You don't suggest that Doctor van Heerden sent that hideous thing to me?"

"I don't suggest anything," said Mr. Beale coolly.