"I'll take the responsibility of not executing the warrant," said McNorton. "You will accompany one of my men to his home to-night and you will be under police supervision."
"That's no new experience," said Milsom, "there's only one piece of advice I want to give you."
"And that is?" asked Beale.
"Don't underrate van Heerden. You have no conception of his nerve. There isn't a man of us here," he said, "whose insurance rate wouldn't go up to ninety per cent. if van Heerden decided to get him. I don't profess that I can help you to explain his strange conduct to-day. I can only outline the psychology of it, but how and where he has hidden his code and what circumstances prevent its recovery, is known only to van Heerden."
He nodded to the little group, and accompanied by McNorton left the room.
"There goes a pretty bad man," said Kitson, "or I am no judge of character. He's an old lag, isn't he?"
Beale nodded.
"Murder," he said laconically. "He lived after his time. He should have been a contemporary of the Borgias."
"A poisoner!" shuddered one of the under-secretaries. "I remember the case. He killed his nephew and defended himself on the plea that the youth was a degenerate, as he undoubtedly was."