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The "foreign gentleman" who on the previous day had called on van Heerden had been seen there that morning, but he, too, had vanished, and none of McNorton's watchers had been able to pick him up. McNorton shifted the direction of his search and dropped into the palatial establishment of Punsonby's.
"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at Highgate." He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A nightfarer who had been in the shade on the opposite side of the street came across and volunteered information. He had seen another car drive up and a gentleman had alighted.
We cannot allow our money to be tied up for too long a time, and it happens ah that just at this moment I should be very glad, very glad indeed, to liquidate that investment." McNorton nodded. He knew a great deal more about White's financial embarrassments than that gentleman gave him credit for.
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.
McNorton recognized the symptoms from long acquaintance with the characteristics of detected criminals, and wondered how deeply this pompous man was committed to whatever scheme was hatching. "Ah ah Mr. McNorton!" stammered White, shaking like a leaf, "won't you sit down, please? To what to what," he swallowed twice before he could get the words out, "to what am I indebted?"
"Don't go," said Beale, "I would like to introduce you to this gentleman." He opened the door and a grey-haired man with a lean, ascetic face came in. Beale closed the door behind him and led the way to the dining-room. "Mr. Kitson, I should like you to know Superintendent McNorton." The two men shook hands. "Well?" said Kitson, "our medical friend seems to have got away with it."
He swept the money aside and read: "For the redemption of one silver hunter, 10s. 6d." It was signed in the characteristic handwriting that Beale knew so well "Van Heerden, M.D." The two men looked at one another. "What do you make of that?" asked McNorton. Beale carried the paper to the light and examined it, and McNorton went on: "He's a pretty cool fellow.
All communication with the Ukraine is cut off, and three ships have been sunk in the Bosphorus so cleverly that our grain ships in the Black Sea are isolated." "That's bad," said Beale. He walked to the table. It was littered with maps and charts and printed tabulations. McNorton got up and joined them. "I have just had a 'phone message through from the Yard," he said.
"Don't get your wool off, Parson," said the other good-humouredly. "You have lost your sense of humour." "That's where you are wrong," said Homo coolly: "I have merely lost my sense of decency." McNorton turned to the other. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "'I am imprisoned at Deans," repeated Beale. "What 'Deans' have you in this country?"
Prices were jumping to a figure beyond any which the most stringent days of the war had produced. He slipped into a telephone booth, gave a Treasury number and McNorton answered. "Have you seen the papers?" he asked. "No, but I've heard. You mean about the wheat boom?" "Yes the game has started." "Where are you wait for me, I'll join you."
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