Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/92

88 mouth and a smile of quiet amusement on his bearded lips.

"Well?" he asked, "did you find her?"

"I did not find her, but I am satisfied that you will."

Van Heerden's eyes did not falter.

"I am beginning to think, Mr. Beale, that over-indulgence in alcoholic stimulants has turned your brain," he said mockingly. "You come into my apartment and demand, with an heroic gesture, where I am concealing a beautiful young lady, in whose welfare I am at least as much interested as you, since that lady is my fiancée and is going to be my wife."

There was a pause.

"She is going to be your wife, is she?" said Beale softly. "I congratulate you if I cannot congratulate her. And when is this interesting engagement to be announced?"

"It is announced at this moment," said the doctor. "The lady is on her way to Liverpool, where she will stay with an aunt of mine. You need not trouble to ask me for her address, because I shall not give it to you."

"I see," said Beale.

"You come in here, I repeat, demanding with all the gesture and voice of melodrama, the hiding-place of my fiancée,"—he enunciated the two last words with great relish—"you ask to search my rooms and I give you permission. You lock yourself in through your own carelessness and when I release you you have a revolver in your hand, and are even more melodramatic than ever. I know what you are going to say"

"You are a clever man," interrupted Beale, "for I don't know myself."

"You were going to say, or you think, that I have some sinister purpose in concealing this lady. Well, to resume my narrative, and to show you your conduct from my point of view, I no sooner release you than you stare like a lunatic at my anatomical cases and dash wildly out, to return full of menace in your tone and attitude. Why?"

"Doctor van Heerden, when I came into your flat there were three anatomical cases at the end of that room.