There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of pillows, gives to the golden sunlight which filters through a billion panes the very hues and character of jaundice. It is the menace of factory and workshop, harsh prisons which shut men and women from the green fields and the pleasant by-ways; the menace of new responsibilities to be faced and new difficulties to be overcome. Into the space of Monday morning drain the dregs of last week's commitments to gather into stagnant pools upon the desks and benches of toiling and scheming humanity. It is the end of the holiday, the foot of the new hill whose crest is Saturday night and whose most pleasant outlook is the Sunday to come.

Men go to their work reluctant and resentful and reach out for the support which the lunch-hour brings. One o'clock in London is about six o'clock in Chicago. Therefore the significance of shoals of cablegrams which lay on the desks of certain brokers was not wholly apparent until late in the evening, and was not thoroughly understood until late on Tuesday morning, when to other and greater shoals of cables came the terse price-lists from the Board of Trade in Chicago, and on top of all the wirelessed Press accounts for the sensational jump in wheat.

"Wheat soaring," said one headline. "Frantic scenes in the Pit," said another. "Wheat reaches famine price," blared a third.

Beale passing through to Whitehall heard the shrill call of the newsboys and caught the word "wheat." He snatched a paper from the hands of a boy and read.

Every corn-market in the Northern Hemisphere was in a condition of chaos. 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."

Three minutes later McNorton appeared from the Whitehall end of Scotland Yard. Beale hailed a cab and they drove to the hotel together.

"Warrants have been issued for van Heerden and Milsom and the girl Glaum," he said. "I expect we shall find the nest empty, but I have sent men to all the railway stations--do you think we've moved too late?"

"Everything depends on the system that van Heerden has adopted," replied Beale, "he is the sort of man who would keep everything in his own hands. If he has done that, and we catch him, we may prevent a world catastrophe."

At the hotel they found Kitson waiting in the vestibule.

"Well?" he asked, "I gather that you've lost van Heerden, but if the newspapers mean anything, his hand is down on the table. Everybody is crazy here," he said, as he led the way to the elevator, "I've just been speaking to the Under-Minister for Agriculture--all Europe is scared. Now what is the story?" he asked, when they were in his room.

He listened attentively and did not interrupt until Stanford Beale had finished.

"That's big enough," he said. "I owe you an apology--much as I was interested in Miss Cresswell, I realize that her fate was as nothing beside the greater issue."

"What does it mean?" asked McNorton.

"The Wheat Panic? God knows. It may mean bread at a guinea a pound--it is too early to judge."

The door was opened unceremoniously and a man strode in. McNorton was the first to recognize the intruder and rose to his feet.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you," said Lord Sevington--it was the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain himself. "Well, Beale, the fantastic story you told me seems in a fair way to being realized."

"This is Mr. Kitson," introduced Stanford, and the grey-haired statesman bowed.

"I sent for you, but decided I couldn't wait--so I came myself. Ah, McNorton, what are the chances of catching van Heerden?"

"No man has ever escaped from this country once his identity was established," said the police chief hopefully.

"If we had taken Beale's advice we should have the gentleman under lock and key," said the Foreign Minister, shaking his head. "You probably know that Mr. Beale has been in communication with the Foreign Office for some time?" he said, addressing Kitson.

"I did not know," admitted the lawyer.

"We thought it was one of those brilliant stories which the American newspaper reporter loves," smiled the minister.

"I don't quite get the commercial end of it," said Kitson. "How does van Heerden benefit by destroying the crops of the world?"

"He doesn't benefit, because the crops won't be destroyed," said the minister. "The South Russian crops are all right, the German crops are intact--but are practically all mortgaged to the German Government."

"The Government?"

"This morning the German Government have made two announcements. The first is the commandeering of all the standing crops, and at the same time the taking over of all options on the sale of wheat. Great granaries are being established all over Germany. The old Zeppelin sheds----"

"Great heavens!" cried Kitson, and stared at Stanford Beale. "That was the reason they took over the sheds?"

"A pretty good reason, too," said Beale, "storage is everything in a crisis like this. What is the second announcement, sir?"

"They prohibit the export of grain," said Lord Sevington, "the whole of Germany is to be rationed for a year, bread is to be supplied by the Government free of all cost to the people; in this way Germany handles the surpluses for us to buy."

"What will she charge?"

"What she wishes. If van Heerden's scheme goes through, if throughout the world the crops are destroyed and only that which lies under Germany's hand is spared, what must we pay? Every penny we have taken from Germany; every cent of her war costs must be returned to her in exchange for wheat."

"Impossible!"

"Why impossible? There is no limit to the price of rarities. What is rarer than gold is more costly than gold. You who are in the room are the only people in the world who know the secret of the Green Rust, and I can speak frankly to you. I tell you that we must either buy from Germany or make war on Germany, and the latter course is impossible, and if it were possible would give us no certaint............