"Now, dry your face." He stooped and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Perhaps what you have done is the best after all. Who knows? Anyway," he said, speaking his thoughts aloud, "Beale knows about the Green Rust and it can't be very long before I have to go to earth, but only for a little time, my Hilda." He smiled, showing his white teeth, but it was not a pleasant smile, "only for a little time, and then," he threw up his arms, "we shall be rich beyond the dreams of Frankfurt."
"You will succeed, I know you will succeed, Julius," she breathed, "if I could only help you! If you would only tell me what you are doing! What is the Green Rust? Is it some wonderful new explosive?"
"Dry your face and go home," he said shortly, "you will find a detective outside the door watching you, but I do not think he will follow you."
He dismissed the girl and followed her after an interval of time, striding boldly past the shadow and gaining the cab-stand in Shaftesbury Avenue without, so far as he could see, being followed. But he dismissed the cab in the neighbourhood of Baker Street and continued his journey on foot. He opened the little door leading into the yard but did not follow the same direction as the girl had led Stanford Beale. It was through another door that he entered the vault, which at one time had been the innocent repository of bubbling life and was now the factory where men worked diligently for the destruction of their fellows.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE GREEN RUST FACTORY
Stanford Beale spent a thoughtful three minutes in the darkness of the cellar passage to which Hilda Glaum had led him and then he began a careful search of his pockets. He carried a little silver cigar-lighter, which had fortunately been charged with petrol that afternoon, and this afforded him a beam of adequate means to take note of his surroundings.
The space between the two locked doors was ten feet, the width of the passage three, the height about seven feet. The roof, as he had already noted, was vaulted. Now he saw that along the centre ran a strip of beading. There had evidently been an electric light installation here, probably before the new owners took possession, for at intervals was a socket for an electric bulb. The new occupants had covered these and the rest of the wall with whitewash, and yet the beading and the electric fittings looked comparatively new. One wall, that on his left as he had come in, revealed nothing under his close inspection, but on the right wall, midway between the two doors, there had been a notice painted in white letters on a black background, and this showed faintly through the thick coating of distemper which had been applied. He damped a handkerchief with his tongue and rubbed away some of the whitewash where the letters were least legible and read:
| AID |
| LTER. |
| ———— |
| ULANCE & |
| T AID. |