"Eh?"

Milsom sat up.

"How--what makes you say that?"

"It's clear enough. He has already some idea of the scheme. He has been pumping old Heyler; he even secured a sample of the stuff--it was a faulty cultivation, but it might have been enough for him. He surmised that I had a special use for old Millinborn's money and why I was in a hurry to get it."

The silence which followed lasted several minutes.

"Does anybody except Beale know? If you settled him...?"

"We should have to finish him to-night" said van Heerden, "that is what I have been thinking about all day."

Another silence.

"Well, why not?" asked Milsom, "it is all one to me. The stake is worth a little extra risk."

"It must be done before he finds the Paddington place; that is the danger which haunts me." Van Heerden was uneasy, and he had lost the note of calm assurance which ordinarily characterized his speech. "There is sufficient evidence there to spoil everything."

"There is that," breathed Milsom, "it was madness to go on. You have all the stuff you want, you could have closed down the factory a week ago."

"I must have a margin of safety--besides, how could I do anything else?

I was nearly broke and any sign of closing down would have brought my hungry workers to Krooman Mansions."

"That's true," agreed the other, "I've had to stall 'em off, but I didn't know that it was because you were broke. It seemed to me just a natural reluctance to part with good money."

Further conversation was arrested by the sudden stoppage of the car. Van Heerden peered through the window ahead and caught a glimpse of a red lamp.

"It is all right," he said, "this must be Putney Common, and I told Gregory to meet me with any news."

A man came into the rays of the head-lamp and passed to the door.

"Well," asked the doctor, "is there any trouble?"

"I saw the green lamp on the bonnet," said Gregory (Milsom no longer wondered how the man had recognized the car from the score of others which pass over the common), "there is no news of importance."

"Where is Beale?"

"At the old man's hotel. He has been there all day."

"Has he made any further visits to the police?"

"He was at Scotland Yard this afternoon."

"And the young lady?"

"One of the waiters at the hotel, a friend of mine, told me that she is much better. She has had two doctors."

"And still lives?" said the cynical Milsom. "That makes four doctors she has seen in two days."

Van Heerden leant out of the car window and lowered his voice.

"The Fraulein Glaum, you saw her?"

"Yes, I told her that she must not come to your laboratory again until you sent for her. She asked when you leave."

"That she must not know, Gregory--please remember."

He withdrew his head, tapped at the window and the car moved on.

"There's another problem for you, van Heerden," said Milsom with a chuckle.

"What?" demanded the other sharply.

"Hilda Glaum. I've only seen the girl twice or so, but she adores you.

What are you going to do with her?"

Van Heerden lit a cigarette, and in the play of the flame Milsom saw him smiling.

"She comes on after me," he said, "by which I mean that I have a place for her in my country, but not----"

"Not the sort of place she expects," finished Milsom bluntly. "You may have trouble there."

"Bah!"

"That's foolish," said Milsom, "the convict establishments of England are filled with men who said 'Bah' when they were warned against jealous women. If," he went on, "if you could eliminate jealousy from the human outfit, you'd have half the prison warders of England unemployed."

"Hilda is a good girl," said the other complacently, "she is also a good German girl, and in Germany women know their place in the system. She will be satisfied with what I give her."

"There aren't any women like that," said Milsom with decision, and the subject dropped.

The car stopped near the Marble Arch to put down Milsom, and van Heerden continued his journey alone, reaching his apartments a little before midnight. As he stepped out of the car a man strolled across the street.

It was Beale's watcher. Van Heerden looked round with a smile, realizing the significance of this nonchalant figure, and passed through the lobby and up the stairs.

He had left his lights full on for the benefit of watchers, and the hall-lamp glowed convincingly through the fanlight. Beale's flat was in darkness, and a slip of paper fastened to the door gave his address.

The doctor let himself into his own rooms, closed the door, switched out the light and stepped into his bureau.

"Hello," he said angrily, "what are you doing here?--I told you not to come."

The girl who was sitting at the table and who now rose to meet him was breathless, and he read trouble in her face. He could have read pride there, too, that she had so well served the man whom she idolized as a god.

"I've got him, I've got him, Julius!"

"Got him! Got whom?" he asked, with a frown.

"Beale!" she said eagerly, "the great Beale!"

She gurgled with hysterical laughter.