The Chief of the Foreign Ministry strode up and down the room, his hands thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.

"It means our holding out for twelve months," he said. "Can we do it?"

"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.

Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.

"More than that? What do you mean?"

"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be infected for ten years."

The four men looked at one another helplessly.

"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very end of civilization!"

Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.

Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.

Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.

McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill high-pitched whine of a newsboy.

Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare headlines than a newspaper sensation.

To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.

"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I had on August 1, 1914--that sensation of unreality."

His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into which he had fallen, and he started.

"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to act--Mr. McNorton, you will go back to Scotland Yard and ask the Chief Commissioner to attend at the office of the Privy Seal. Mr. Beale will keep in touch with me all the time."

Without any formal leave-taking he made his exit, followed by Superintendent McNorton.

"That's a badly rattled man," said Kitson shrewdly, "the Government may fall on this news. What will you do?"

"Get van Heerden," said the other.

"It is the job of your life," said Kitson quietly, and Beale knew within a quarter of an hour that the lawyer did not exaggerate.

Van Heerden had disappeared with dramatic suddenness. Detectives who visited his flat discovered that his personal belongings had been removed in the early hours of the morning. He had left with two trunks (which were afterwards found in a cloak-room of a London railway terminus) and a companion who was identified as Milsom. Whether the car had gone east or north, south or west, nobody knew.

In the early editions of the evening newspapers, side by side with the account of the panic scenes on 'Change was the notice:

"The Air Ministry announce the suspension of Order 63 of Trans-Marine Flight Regulations. No aeroplane will be allowed to cross the coastline by day or night without first descending at a coast control station. Aerial patrols have orders to force down any machine which does not obey the 'Descend' signal. This signal is now displayed at all coast stations."

Every railway station in England, every port of embarkation, were watched by police. The one photograph of van Heerden in existence, thousands of copies of an excellent snapshot taken by one of Beale's assistants, were distributed by aeroplane to every district centre. At two o'clock Hilda Glaum was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street. She showed neither surprise nor resentment and offered no information as to van Heerden's whereabouts.

Throughout the afternoon there were the usual crops of false arrest and detention of perfectly innocent people, and at five o'clock it was announced that all telegraphic communication with the Continent and with the Western Hemisphere was suspended until further notice.

Beale came back from Barking, whither he had gone to interview a choleric commercial traveller who bore some facial resemblance to van Heerden, and had been arrested in consequence, and discovered that something like a Council of War was being held in Kitson's private room.

McNorton and two of his assistants were present. There was an Under-Secretary from the Foreign Office, a great scientist whose services had been called upon, and a man whom he recognized as a member of the Committee of the Corn Exchange. He shook his head in answer to McNorton's inquiring glance, and would have taken his seat at the table, but Kitson, who had risen on his entrance, beckoned him to the window.

"We can do without you for a little while, Beale," he said, lowering his voice. "There's somebody there," he jerked his head to a door which led to another room of his suite, "who requires an explanation, and I think your time will be so fully occupied in the next few days that you had better seize this opportunity whilst you have it."

"Miss Cresswell!" said Beale, in despair.

The old man nodded slowly.

"What does she know?"

"That is for you to discover," said Kitson gently, and pushed him toward the door.

With a quaking heart he turned the knob and stepped guiltily into the presence of the girl who in the eyes of the law was his wife.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM

She rose to meet him, and he stood spellbound, still holding the handle of the door. It seemed that she had taken on new qualities, a new and an ethereal grace. At the very thought even of his technical possession of this smiling girl who came forward to greet him, his heart thumped so loudly that he felt she must hear it. She was pale, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, but the hand that gripped his was firm and warm and living.

"I have to thank you for much, Mr. Beale," she said. "Mr. Kitson has told me that I owe my rescue to you."

"Did he?" he asked awkwardly, and wondered what else Kitson had told her.

"I am trying to be very sensible, and I want you to help me, because you are the most sensible man I know."

She went back to the lounge-chair where she had been sitting, and pointed to another.

"It was horribly melodramatic, wasn't it? but I suppose the life of a detective is full of melodrama."

"Oh, brimming over," he said. "If you keep very quiet I will give you a resume of my most interesting cases," he said, making a pathetic attempt to be flippant, and the girl detected something of his insincerity.

"You have had a trying day," she said, with quick sympathy, "have you arrested Doctor van Heerden?"

He shook his head.

"I am glad," she said.

"Glad?"