Beale had a long consultation with McNorton at Scotland Yard, and on his return to the hotel, had his dinner sent up to Kitson's private room and dined amidst a litter of open newspapers. They were representative journals of the past week, and he scanned their columns carefully. Now and again he would cut out a paragraph and in one case half a column.

Kitson, who was dining with a friend in the restaurant of the hotel, came up toward nine o'clock and stood looking with amusement at the detective's silent labours.

"You're making a deplorable litter in my room," he said, "but I suppose there is something very mysterious and terrible behind it all. Do you mind my reading your cuttings?"

"Go ahead," said Beale, without raising his eyes from his newspaper.

Kitson took up a slip and read aloud:

"The reserves of the Land Bank of the Ukraine have been increased by ten million roubles. This increase has very considerably eased the situation in Southern Ukraine and in Galicia, where there has been considerable unrest amongst the peasants due to the high cost of textiles."

"That is fascinating news," said Kitson sardonically. "Are you running a scrap-book on high finance?"

"No," said the other shortly, "the Land Bank is a Loan Bank. It finances peasant proprietors."

"You a shareholder?" asked Mr. Kitson wonderingly.

"No."

Kitson picked up another cutting. It was a telegraphic dispatch dated from Berlin:

"As evidence of the healthy industrial tone which prevails in Germany and the rapidity with which the Government is recovering from the effects of the war, I may instance the fact that an order has been placed with the Leipzieger Spoorwagen Gesselshaft for 60,000 box cars. The order has been placed by the L.S.G. with thirty firms, and the first delivery is due in six weeks."

"That's exciting," said Kitson, "but why cut it out?"

The next cutting was also dated "Berlin" and announced the revival of the "War Purchase Council" of the old belligerent days as "a temporary measure."

"It is not intended," said the dispatch, "to invest the committee with all its old functions, and the step has been taken in view of the bad potato crop to organize distribution."

"What's the joke about that?" asked Kitson, now puzzled.

"The joke is that there is no potato shortage--there never was such a good harvest," said Beale. "I keep tag of these things and I know. The _Western Mail_ had an article from its Berlin correspondent last week saying that potatoes were so plentiful that they were a drug on the market."

"H'm!"

"Did you read about the Zeppelin sheds?" asked Beale. "You will find it amongst the others. All the old Zepp. hangars throughout Germany are to be put in a state of repair and turned into skating-rinks for the physical development of young Germany. Wonderful concrete floors are to be laid down, all the dilapidations are to be made good, and the bands will play daily, wet or fine."

"What does it all mean?" asked the bewildered lawyer.

"That The Day--the real Day is near at hand," said Beale soberly.

"War?"

"Against the world, but without the flash of a bayonet or the boom of a cannon. A war fought by men sitting in their little offices and pulling the strings that will choke you and me, Mr. Kitson. To-night I am going after van Heerden. I may catch him and yet fail to arrest his evil work--that's a funny word, 'evil,' for everyday people to use, but there's no other like it. To-morrow, whether I catch him or not, I will tell you the story of the plot I accidentally discovered. The British Government thinks that I have got on the track of a big thing--so does Washington, and I'm having all the help I want."

"It's a queer world," said Kitson.

"It may be queerer," responded Beale, then boldly: "How is my wife?"

"Your--well, I like your nerve!" gasped Kitson.

"I thought you preferred it that way--how is Miss Cresswell?"

"The nurse says she is doing famously. She is sleeping now; but she woke up for food and is nearly normal. She did not ask for you," he added pointedly.

Beale flushed and laughed.

"My last attempt to be merry," he said. "I suppose that to-morrow she will be well."

"But not receiving visitors," Kitson was careful to warn him. "You will keep your mind off Oliva and keep your eye fixed on van Heerden if you are wise. No man can serve two masters."

Stanford Beale looked at his watch.

"It is the hour," he said oracularly, and got up.

"I'll leave this untidiness for your man to clear," said Kitson. "Where do you go now?"

"To see Hilda Glaum--if the fates are kind," said Beale. "I'm going to put up a bluff, believing that in her panic she will lead me into the lion's den with the idea of van Heerden making one mouthful of me. I've got to take that risk. If she is what I think she is, she'll lay a trap for me--I'll fall for it, but I'm going to get next to van Heerden to-night."

Kitson accompanied him to the door of the hotel.

"Take no unnecessary risks," he said at parting, "don't forget that you're a married man."

"That's one of the things I want to forget if you'll let me," said the exasperated young man.

Outside the hotel he hailed a passing taxi and was soon speeding through Piccadilly westward. He turned by Hyde Park Corner, skirted the grounds of Buckingham Palace and plunged into the maze of Pimlico. He pulled up before a dreary-looking house in a blank and dreary street, and telling the cabman to wait, mounted the steps and rang the bell.

A diminutive maid opened the door.

"Is Miss Glaum in?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir. Will you step into the drawing-room. All the other boarders are out. What name shall I say?"

"Tell her a gentleman from Krooman Mansions," he answered diplomatically.

He walked into the tawdry parlour and put down his hat and stick, and waited. Presently the door opened and the girl came in. She stopped open-mouthed with surprise at the sight of him, and her surprise deepened to suspicion.

"I thought----" she began, and checked herself.

"You thought I was Doctor van Heerden? Well, I am not."

"You're the man I saw at Heyler's," she said, glowering at him.

"Yes, my name is Beale."

"Oh, I've heard about you. You'll get nothing by prying here," she cried.

"I shall get a great deal by prying here, I think," he said calmly. "Sit down, Miss Hilda Glaum, and let us understand one another. You are a friend of Doctor van Heerden's?"

"I shall answer no questions," she snapped.

"Perhaps you will answer this question," he said, "why did Doctor van Heerden secure an appointment for you at Punsonby's, and why, when you were ther............