The Green Rust

"Parcel, miss," said the invisible official, and put into the hand that came round the edge of the door a letter and a small package. She brought them to the sitting-room and pulled back the curtains. The letter was type-written and was on the note-paper of a well-known firm of perfumers. It was addressed to "Miss Olivia Cresswell," and ran:

"Dear Madame,—

"We have pleasure in sending you for your use a sample cake of our new Complexion Soap, which we trust will meet with your approval."

"But how nice," she said, and wondered why she had been singled out for the favour. She opened the package. In a small carton, carefully wrapped in the thinnest of paper, was an oval tablet of lavender-coloured soap that exhaled a delicate fragrance.

"But how nice," she said again, and put the gift in the bath-room.

This was starting the day well—a small enough foundation for happiness, yet one which every woman knows, for happiness is made up of small and acceptable things and, given the psychological moment, a bunch of primroses has a greater value than a rope of pearls.

In her bath she picked up the soap and dropped it back in the tidy again quickly.

"Don't use soap; bring it to office."

She remembered the message in a flash. Beale had known that this parcel was coming then, and his "most urgent" warning was not a joke. She dressed quickly, made a poor breakfast and was at the office ten minutes before the hour.

She found her employer waiting, sitting in his accustomed place on the edge of the table in her office. He gave her a little nod of welcome, and without a word stretched out his hand.

"The soap?" she asked.

He nodded.

She opened her bag.

"Good," he said. "I see you have kept the wrappings, and that, I presume, is the letter which accompanied the—what shall I say—gift? Don't touch it with your bare hand," he said quickly. "Handle it with the paper."

He pulled his gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then took the cake of soap in his hand and carried it to the light, smelt it and returned it to its paper.

"Now let me see the letter."

She handed it to him, and he read it.

"From Brandan, the perfumers. They wouldn't be in it, but we had better make sure."

He walked to the telephone and gave a number, and the girl heard him speaking in a low tone to somebody at the other end. Presently he put down the receiver and walked back, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"They know nothing about this act of generosity," he said.

By this time she had removed her coat and hat and hung them up, and had taken her place at her desk. She sat with her elbows on the blotting-pad, her chin on her clasped hands, looking up at him.

"I don't think it's fair that things should be kept from me any longer," she said. "Many mysterious things have happened in the past few days, and since they have all directly affected me, I think I am entitled to some sort of explanation."

"I think you are," said Mr. Beale, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, "but I am not prepared to explain everything just yet. Thus much I will tell you, that had you used this soap this morning, by the evening you would have been covered from head to foot in a rather alarming and irritating rash."

She gasped.

"But who dared to send me this?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows? But first let me ask you this, Miss Cresswell. Suppose to-night when you had looked at yourself in the glass you had discovered your face was covered with red blotches and, on further examination, you found your arms and, indeed, the whole of your body similarly disfigured, what would you have done?"

She thought for a moment.

"Why, of course, I should have sent for the doctor."

"Which doctor?" he asked carelessly.

"Doctor van Heerden—oh!" She looked at him resentfully. "You don't suggest that Doctor van Heerden sent that hideous thing to me?"

"I don't suggest anything," said Mr. Beale coolly.

"I merely say that you would have sent for a doctor, and that that doctor would have been Doctor van Heerden. I say further, that he would have come to you and been very sympathetic, and would have ordered you to remain in bed for four or five days. I think, too," he said, looking up at the ceiling and speaking slowly, as though he were working out the possible consequence in his mind, "that he would have given you some very palatable medicine."

"What are you insinuating?" she asked quietly.

He did not reply immediately.

"If you will get out of your mind the idea that I have any particular grievance against Doctor van Heerden, that I regard him as a rival, a business rival let us say, or that I have some secret grudge against him, and if in place of that suspicion you would believe that I am serving a much larger interest than is apparent to you, I think we might discuss"—he smiled—"even Doctor van Heerden without such a discussion giving offence to you."

She laughed.

"I am really not offended. I am rather distressed, if anything," she said, knitting her brows. "You see, Doctor van Heerden has always been most kind to me."

Beale nodded.

"He got you your rooms at the flats," he replied quietly; "he was also ready to give you employment the moment you were providentially discharged from Punsonby's. Does it not strike you, Miss Cresswell, that every kind act of Doctor van Heerden's has had a tendency to bring you together, into closer association, I mean? Does it not appear to you that the net result of all the things that might have happened to you in the past few days would have been to make you more and more dependent upon Doctor van Heerden? For example, if you had gone into his employ as he planned that you should?"

"Planned!" she gasped.

His face was grave now and the laughter had gone out of his eyes.

"Planned," he said quietly. "You were discharged from Punsonby's at Doctor van Heerden's instigation."

"I will not believe it!"

"That will not make it any less the fact," said Mr. Beale. "You were nearly arrested—again at Doctor van Heerden's instigation. He was waiting for you when you came back from Punsonby's, ready to offer you his job. When he discovered you had already engaged yourself he telephoned to White, instructing him to have you arrested so that you might be disgraced and might turn to him, your one loyal friend."

She listened speechless. She could only stare at him and could not even interrupt him. For her shrewd woman instinct told her so convincingly that even her sense of loyalty could not eject the doubt which assailed her mind, that if there was not truth in what he was saying there was at least probability.

"I suggest even more," Beale went on. "I suggest that for some purpose, Doctor van Heerden desires to secure a mental, physical and moral ascendancy over you. In other words, he wishes to enslave you to his will."

She looked at him in wonder and burst into a peal of ringing laughter.

"Really, Mr. Beale, you are too absurd," she said.

"Aren't I?" he smiled. "It sounds like something out of a melodrama."

"Why on earth should he want to secure a mental ascendancy over me? Do you suggest–" She flushed.

"I suggest nothing any longer," said Beale, slipping off from the end of the table. "I merely make a statement of fact. I do not think he has any designs on you, within the conventional meaning of that phrase, indeed, I think he wants to marry you—what do you think about that?"

She had recovered something of her poise, and her sense of humour was helping her out of a situation which, without such a gift, might have been an embarrassing one.

"I think you have been seeing too many plays and reading too many exciting books, Mr. Beale," she said, "I confess I have never regarded Doctor van Heerden as a possible suitor, and if I thought he was I should be immensely flattered. But may I suggest to you that there are other ways of winning a girl than by giving her nettle-rash!"

They laughed together.

"All right," he said, swinging up his hat, "proceed with the good work and seek out the various domiciles of Mr. Scobbs."

Then she remembered.

"Do you know–?"

He was at the door when she spoke and he stopped and turned.

"The name of Mr. Scobbs gives me a cold shiver."

"Why?"

"Answer me this," she said: "why should I who have never heard of him before until yesterday hear his name mentioned by a perfect stranger?"

The smile died away from his face.

"Who mentioned him! No, it isn't idle curiosity," he said in face of her derisive finger. "I am really serious. Who mentioned his name?"

"A visitor of Doctor van Heerden's. I heard them talking through the ventilator when I was bolting my door."

"A visitor to Doctor van Heerden, and he mentioned Mr. Scobbs of Red Horse Valley," he said half to himself. "You didn't see the man?"

"No."

"You just heard him. No names were mentioned?"

"None," she said. "Is it a frightfully important matter?"

"It is rather," he replied. "We have got to get busy," and with this cryptic remark he left her.

The day passed as quickly as its predecessor. The tabulation at which she was working grew until by the evening there was a pile of sheets in the left-hand cupboard covered with her fine writing. She might have done more but for the search she had to make for a missing report to verify one of her facts. It was not on the shelf, and she was about to abandon her search and postpone the confirmation till she saw Beale, when she noticed a cupboard beneath the shelves. It was unlocked and she opened it and found, as she had expected, that it was full of books, amongst which was the missing documentation she sought.

With a view to future contingencies, she examined the contents of the cupboard and was arrested by a thin volume which bore no inscription or title on its blank cover. She opened it, and on the title page read: "The Millinborn Murder." The author's name was not given and the contents were made up of very careful analysis of evidence given by the various witnesses at the inquest, and plans and diagrams with little red crosses to show where every actor in that tragedy had been.

She read the first page idly and turned it. She was half-way down the second page when she uttered a little exclamation, for a familiar name was there, the name of Dr. van Heerden.

Fascinated, she read the story to the end, half-expecting that the name of Mr. Beale would occur.

There were many names all unknown to her and one that occurred with the greatest frequency was that of James Kitson. Mr. Beale did not appear to have played any part. She read for an hour, sitting on the floor by the cupboard. She reached the last page, closed the book and slipped it back in the cupboard. She wondered why Beale had preserved this record and whether his antagonism to the doctor was founded on that case. At first she thought she identified him with the mysterious man who had appeared in the plantation before the murder, but a glance back at the description of the stranger dispelled that idea. For all the reputation he had, Mr. Beale did not have "an inflamed, swollen countenance, colourless bloodshot eyes," nor was he bald.

She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed her work to be interrupted, and in penance decided to remain on until six instead of five o'clock as she had intended. Besides, she half expected that Mr. Beale would return, and was surprised to discover that she was disappointed that he had not.

At six o'clock she dismissed the boy, closed and locked the office, and made her way downstairs into the crowded street.

To her surprise she heard her name spoken, and turned to face Dr. van Heerden.

"I have been waiting for you for nearly an hour," he said with good-humoured reproach.

"And your patients are probably dying like flies," she countered.

It was in her mind to make some excuse and go home alone, but curiosity got the better of her and impelled her to wait to discover the object of this unexpected visitation.

"How did you know where I was working?" she asked, as the thought occurred to her.

He laughed.

"It was a very simple matter. I was on my way to a patient and I saw you coming out to lunch," he said, "and as I found myself in the neighbourhood an hour ago I thought I would wait and take you home. You are doing a very foolish thing," he added.

"What do you mean—in stopping to talk to you when I ought to be on my way home to tea?"

"No, in engaging yourself to a man like Beale. You know the reputation he has! My dear girl, I was shocked when I discovered who your employer was."

"I don't think you need distress yourself on my account, doctor," she said quietly. "Really, Mr. Beale is quite pleasant—in his lucid moments," she smiled to herself.

She was not being disloyal to her employer. If he chose to encourage suspicion in his mode of life he must abide by the consequences.

"But a drunkard, faugh!" The exquisite doctor shivered. "I have always tried to be a friend of yours, Miss Cresswell, and I hope you are going to let me continue to be, and my advice to you in that capacity is—give Mr. Beale notice."

"How absurd you are!" she laughed. "There is no reason in the world why I should do anything of the sort. Mr. Beale has treated me with the greatest consideration."

"What is he, by the way?" asked the doctor.

"He's an agent of some sort," said the girl, "but I am sure you don't want me to discuss his business. And now I must go, doctor, if you will excuse me."

"One moment," he begged. "I have a cab here. Won't you come and have tea somewhere?"

"Where is somewhere?" she asked.

"The Grand Alliance?" he suggested.

She nodded slowly.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CRIME OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE

The hotel and the café of the Grand Alliance was London's newest rendezvous. Its great palm-court was crowded at the tea-hour and if, as the mysterious Mr. Beale had hinted, any danger was to be apprehended from Dr. van Heerden, it could not come to her in that most open of public places.

She had no fear, but that eighth sense of armed caution, which is the possession of every girl who has to work for her living and is conscious of the perils which await her on every side, reviewed with lightning speed all the possibilities and gave her the passport of approval.

It was later than she had thought. Only a few tables were occupied, but he had evidently reserved one, for immediately on his appearance the waiter with a smirk led him to one of the alcoves and pulled back a chair for the girl. She looked round as she stripped her gloves. The place was not unfamiliar to her. It was here she came at rare intervals, when her finances admitted of such an hilarious recreation, to find comfort for jangled nerves, to sit and sip her tea to the sound of violins and watch the happy crowd at her leisure, absorbing something of the happiness they diffused.

The palm-court was a spacious marble hall, a big circle of polished pillars supporting the dome, through the tinted glass of which the light was filtered in soft hues upon the marble floor below.

"Doctor," she said, suddenly remembering, "I have been reading quite a lot about you to-day."

He raised his eyebrows.

"About me?"

She nodded, smiling mischievously.

"I didn't know that you were such a famous person—I have been reading about the Millinborn murder."

"You have been reading about the Millinborn murder?" he said steadily, looking into her eyes. "An unpleasant case and one I should like to forget."

"I thought it was awfully thrilling," she said. "It read like a detective story without a satisfactory end."

He laughed.

"What a perfectly gruesome subject for tea-table talk," he said lightly, and beckoned the head-waiter. "You are keeping us waiting, Jaques."

"Doctor, it will be but a few minutes," pleaded the waiter, and then in a low voice, which was not so low that it did not reach the girl. "We have had some trouble this afternoon, doctor, with your friend."

"My friend?"

The doctor looked up sharply.

"Whom do you mean?"

"With Mr. Jackson."

"Jackson," said the doctor, startled. "I thought he had left."

"He was to leave this morning by the ten o'clock train, but he had a fainting-fit. We recovered him with brandy and he was too well, for this afternoon he faint again."

"Where is he now?" asked van Heerden, after a pause.

"In his room, monsieur. To-night he leave for Ireland—this he tell me—to catch the mail steamer at Queenstown."

"Don't let him know I am here," said the doctor.

He turned to the girl with a shrug.

"A dissolute friend of mine whom I am sending out to the colonies," he said.

"Won't you go and see him?" she asked. "He must be very ill if he faints."

"I think not," said Dr. van Heerden quietly, "these little attacks are not serious—he had one in my room the other night. It is a result of over-indulgence, and six months in Canada will make a man of him."

She did not reply. With difficulty she restrained an exclamation. So that was the man who had been in the doctor's room and who was going to Red Horse Valley! She would have dearly loved to supplement her information about Mr. Scobbs, proprietor of many hotels, and to have mystified him with her knowledge of Western Canada, but she refrained.

Instead, she took up the conversation where he had tried to break it off.

"Do you know Mr. Kitson?"

"Kitson? Oh yes, you mean the lawyer man," he replied reluctantly. "I know him, but I am afraid I don't know much that is good about him. Now, I'm going to tell you, Miss Cresswell"—he leant across the table and spoke in a lower tone—"something that I have never told to a human being. You raised the question of the Millinborn murder. My view is that Kitson, the lawyer, knew much more about that murder than any man in this world. If there is anybody who knows more it is Beale."

"Mr. Beale?" she said incredulously.

"Mr. Beale," he repeated. "You know the story of the murder: you say you have read it. Millinborn was dying and I had left the room with Kitson when somebody entered the window and stabbed John Millinborn to the heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw anything, but later he may change his tune."

A light dawned upon her.

"Then Jackson is the man who was seen by Mr. Kitson in the plantation?"

"Exactly," said the doctor.

"But I don't understand," she said, perplexed. "Aren't the police searching for Jackson?"

"I do not think that it is in the interests of justice that they should find him," he said gravely. "I place the utmost reliance on him. I am sending Mr. Jackson to a farm in Ontario kept by a medical friend of mine who has made a hobby of dealing with dipsomaniacs."

He met her eyes unfalteringly.

"Dr. van Heerden," she said slowly, "you are sending Mr. Jackson to Red Horse Valley."

He started back as if he had been struck in the face, and for a moment was inarticulate.

"What—what do you know?" he asked incoherently.

His face had grown white, his eyes tragic with fear. She was alarmed at the effect of her words and hastened to remove the impression she had created.

"I only know that I heard Mr. Jackson through the ventilator of my flat, saying good-bye to you the other night. He mentioned Red Horse Valley–"

He drew a deep breath and was master of himself again, but his face was still pale.

"Oh, that," he said, "that is a polite fiction. Jackson knows of this inebriates' home in Ontario and I had to provide him with a destination. He will go no farther than–"

"Why, curse my life, if it isn't the doctor!"

At the sound of the raucous voice both looked up. The man called Jackson had hailed them from the centre of the hall. He was well dressed, but no tailor could compensate for the repulsiveness of that puckered and swollen face, those malignant eyes which peered out into the world through two slits. He was wearing his loud-check suit, his new hat was in his hand and the conical-shaped dome of his head glistened baldly.

"I'm cursed if this isn't amiable of you, doctor!"

He did not look at the girl, but grinned complacently upon her angry companion.

"Here I am "—he threw out his arms with an extravagant gesture—"leaving the country of my adoption, if not birth, without one solitary soul to see me off or take farewell of me. I, who have been—well, you know, what I've been, van Heerden. The world has treated me very badly. By heaven! I'd like to come back a billionaire and ruin all of 'em. I'd like to cut their throats and amputate 'em limb from limb, I would like–"

"Be silent!" said van Heerden angrily. "Have you no decency? Do you not realize I am with a lady?"

"Pardon." The man called Jackson leapt up from the chair into which he had fallen and bowed extravagantly in the direction of the girl. "I cannot see your face because of your hat, my dear lady," he said gallantly, "but I am sure my friend van Heerden, whose taste–"

"Will you be quiet?" said van Heerden. "Go to your room and I will come up to you."

"Go to my room!" scoffed the other. "By Jove! I like that! That any whipper-snapper of a sawbones should tell me to go to my room. After what I have been, after the position I have held in society. I have had ambassadors' carriages at my door, my dear fellow, princes of the royal blood, and to be told to go to my room like a naughty little boy! It's too much!"

"Then behave yourself," said van Heerden, "and at least wait until I am free before you approach me again."

But the man showed no inclination to move; rather did this rebuff stimulate his power of reminiscence.

"Ignore me, miss—I have not your name, but I am sure it is a noble one," he said. "You see before you one who in his time has been a squire of dames, by Jove! I can't remember 'em. They must number thousands and only one of them was worth two sous. Yes," he shook his head in melancholy, "only one of 'em. By Jove! The rest were"—he snapped his fingers—"that for 'em!"

The girl listened against her will.

"Jackson!"—and van Heerden's voice trembled with passion—"will you go or must I force you to go?"

Jackson rose with a loud laugh.

"Evidently I am de trop," he said with heavy sarcasm.

He held out a swollen hand which van Heerden ignored.

"Farewell, mademoiselle." He thrust the hand forward, so that she could not miss it.

She took it, a cold flabby thing which sent a shudder of loathing through her frame, and raised her face to his for the first time.

He let the hand drop. He was staring at her with open mouth and features distorted with horror.

"You!" he croaked.

She shrunk back against the wall of the alcove, but he made no movement. She sensed the terror and agony in his voice.

"You!" he gasped. "Mary!"

"Hang you! Go!" roared van Heerden, and thrust him back.

But though he staggered back a pace under the weight of the other's arm, his eyes did not leave the girl's face, and she, fascinated by the appeal in the face of the wreck, could not turn hers away.

"Mary!" he whispered, "what is your other name?"

With an effort the girl recovered herself.

"My name is not Mary," she said quietly. "My name is Oliva Cresswell."

"Oliva Cresswell," he repeated. "Oliva Cresswell!"

He made a movement toward her but van Heerden barred his way. She heard Jackson say something in a strangled voice and heard van Heerden's sharp "What!" and there was a fierce exchange of words.

The attention of the few people in the palm-court had been attracted to the unusual spectacle of two men engaged in what appeared to be a struggle.

"Sit down, sit down, you fool! Sit over there. I will come to you in a minute. Can you swear what you say is true?"

Jackson nodded. He was shaking from head to foot.

"My name is Prédeaux," he said; "that is my daughter—I married in the name of Cresswell. My daughter," he repeated. "How wonderful!"

"What are you going to do?" asked van Heerden.

He had half-led, half-pushed the other to a chair near one of the pillars of the rotunda.

"I am going to tell her," said the wreck. "What are you doing with her?" he demanded fiercely.

"That is no business of yours," replied van Heerden sharply.