"The battle will not be fought in the field," he said, "it will be fought right here in London, in all your great towns, in Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Cardiff. It will be fought in New York and in a thousand townships between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and if the German scheme comes off we shall be beaten before a shot is fired."

"What does it mean?" asked the editor, "why is everybody buying wheat so frantically? There is no shortage. The harvests in the United States and Canada are good."

"There will be no harvests," said Beale solemnly; and the journalist gaped at him.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE END OF VAN HEERDEN

Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleasant travelling-companion. When a man takes a girl, against her will, from a pleasant suite at the best hotel in London, compels her at the peril of death to accompany him on a motor-car ride in the dead of the night, and when his offence is a duplication of one which had been committed less than a week before, he not unnaturally anticipates tears, supplications, or in the alternative a frigid and unapproachable silence.

To his amazement Oliva was extraordinarily cheerful and talkative and even amusing. He had kept Bridgers at the door of the car whilst he investigated the pawn-broking establishment of Messrs. Rosenblaum Bros., and had returned in triumph to discover that the girl who up to then had been taciturn and uncommunicative was in quite an amiable mood.

"I used to think," she said, "that motor-car abductions were the invention of sensational writers, but you seem to make a practice of it.

You are not very original, Dr. van Heerden. I think I've told you that before."

He smiled in the darkness as the car sped smoothly through the deserted streets.

"I must plead guilty to being rather unoriginal," he said, "but I promise you that this little adventure shall not end as did the last."

"It can hardly do that," she laughed, "I can only be married once whilst Mr. Beale is alive."

"I forgot you were married," he said suddenly, then after a pause, "I suppose you will divorce him?"

"Why?" she asked innocently.

"But you're not fond of that fellow, are you?"

"Passionately," she said calmly, "he is my ideal."

The reply took away his breath and certainly silenced him.

"How is this adventure to end?" she demanded. "Are you going to maroon me on a desert island, or are you taking me to Germany?"

"How did you know I am trying to get to Germany?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, Mr. Beale thought so," she replied, in a tone of indifference, "he reckoned that he would catch you somewhere near the coast."

"He did, did he?" said the other calmly. "I shall deny him that pleasure. I don't intend taking you to Germany. Indeed, it is not my intention to detain you any longer than is necessary."

"For which I am truly grateful," she smiled, "but why detain me at all?"

"That is a stupid question to ask when I am sure you have no doubt in your mind as to why it is necessary to keep you close to me until I have finished my work. I think I told you some time ago," he went on, "that I had a great scheme. The other day you called me a Hun, by which I suppose you meant that I was a German. It is perfectly true that I am a German and I am a patriotic German. To me even in these days of his degradation the Kaiser is still little less than a god."

His voice quivered a little, and the girl was struck dumb with wonder that a man of such intelligence, of such a wide outlook, of such modernity, should hold to views so archaic.

"Your country ruined Germany. You have sucked us dry. To say that I hate England and hate America--for you Anglo-Saxons are one in your soulless covetousness--is to express my feelings mildly."

"But what is your scheme?" she asked.

"Briefly I will tell you, Miss Cresswell, that you may understand that to-night you accompany history and are a participant in world politics.

America and England are going to pay. They are going to buy corn from my country at the price that Germany can fix. It will be a price," he cried, and did not attempt to conceal his joy, "which will ruin the Anglo-Saxon people more effectively than they ruined Germany."

"But how?" she asked, bewildered.

"They are going to buy corn," he repeated, "at our price, corn which is stored in Germany."

"But what nonsense!" she said scornfully, "I don't know very much about harvests and things of that kind, but I know that most of the world's wheat comes from America and from Russia."

"The Russian wheat will be in German granaries," he said softly, "the American wheat--there will be no American wheat."

And then his calmness deserted him. The story of the Green Rust burst out in a wild flood of language which was half-German and half-English.

The man was beside himself, almost mad, and before his gesticulating hands she shrank back into the corner of the car. She saw his silhouette against the window, heard the roar and scream of his voice as he babbled incoherently of his wonderful scheme and had to piece together as best she could his disconnected narrative. And then she remembered her work in Beale's office, the careful tabulation of American farms, the names of the sheriffs, the hotels where conveyances might be secured.

So that was it! Beale had discovered the plot, and had already moved to counter this devilish plan. And she remembered the man who had come to her room in mistake for van Heerden's and the phial of green sawdust he carried and Beale's look of horror when he examined it. And suddenly she cried with such vehemence that his flood of talk was stopped:

"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"

"What--what do you mean?" he demanded suspiciously. "What are you thanking God about?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing." She was her eager, animated self. "Tell me some more. It is a wonderful story. It is true, is it not?"

"True?" he laughed harshly, "you shall see how true it is. You shall see the world lie at the feet of German science. To-morrow the word will go forth. Look!" He clicked on a little electric light and held out his hand. In his palm lay a silver watch.

"I told you there was a code" (she was dimly conscious that he had spoken of a code but she had been so occupied by her own thoughts that she had not caught all that he had said). "That code was in this watch.

Look!"

He pressed a knob and the case flew open. Pasted to the inside of the case was a circular piece of paper covered with fine writing.

"When you found that ticket you had the code in your hands," he chuckled; "if you or your friends had the sense to redeem that watch I could not have sent to-morrow the message of German liberation! See, it is very simple!" He pointed with his finger and held the watch half-way to the roof that the light might better reveal the wording. "This word means 'Proceed.' It will go to all my chief agents. They will transmit it by telegram to hundreds of centres. By Thursday morning great stretches of territory where the golden corn was waving so proudly to-day will be blackened wastes. By Saturday the world will confront its sublime catastrophe."

"But why have you three words?" she asked huskily.

"We Germans provide against all contingencies," he said, "we leave nothing to chance. We are not gamblers. We work on lines of scientific accuracy. The second word is to tell my agents to suspend operations until they hear from me. The third word means 'Abandon the scheme for this year'! We must work with the markets. A more favourable opportunity might occur--with so grand a conception it is necessary that we should obtain the maximum results for our labours."

He snapped the case of the watch and put it back in his pocket, turned out the light and settled himself back with a sigh of content.

"You see you are unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless----" A thought struck him, and he frowned.

"Unless----?" she repeated with a sinking heart in spite of her assurance.

"Bridgers was speaking to me of you. He who is driving." He nodded to the dimly outlined shoulders of the chauffeur. "He has been a faithful fellow----"

"You wouldn't?" she gasped.