Page:Edgar Wallace - The Green Rust.djvu/98

94 them and returned in time to release the savage Beale.

He watched him racing down the stairs, darted to the door of Oliva's rooms, opened it and went in. In ten seconds she had been lifted from her narrow prison and laid on her bed, the box had been returned to the place where it had stood in the doctor's study and the men had returned to join van Heerden in Oliva's darkened sitting-room.

Van Heerden had switched on the light in the girl's room and then noticed for the first time that one of her shoes was missing. Quickly he slipped off the remaining shoe.

"You wait here," he told the men, "until you hear Beale return. Then make your escape. On your way down leave the shoe on the stairs. It will help to put our friend off the trail."

Half an hour after the discovery of the shoe on the stairs Beale went out accompanied by his visitors.

The doctor watched the dark figures disappear into the night from the window of his sitting-room and made his way back to the girl's flat. She was lying where he had left her, feeling dizzy and sick. Her eyes closed in a little grimace of distaste as he put on the light.

"How does my little friend feel now?" he asked coolly.

She made no reply.

"Really, you must not sulk," he said chidingly, "and you must get used to being polite because you are going to see a great deal of me. You had better get up and put your coat on."

She noticed that he had a medicine glass in his hand, half-filled with a milky-white liquor.

"Drink this," he said.

She pushed it away.

"Come, drink it," he said, "you don't suppose I want to poison you, do you? I don't even want to drug you, otherwise it would have been simple to have given you a little more ether. Drink it. It will take that hazy feeling out of your head."

She took the glass with an unsteady hand and swallowed