"You have no great anxiety to marry the widow?"
It was not Milsom who spoke, but the man at the bench, the industrious worker whose eye was still at the microscope.
"Keep your comments to yourself," said van Heerden angrily, "finish your work and get out."
The worker rose slowly and loosening the tapes of his mask pulled it off.
"My name is Beale," he said calmly, "I think we've met before. Don't move, Milsom, unless you want to save living-expenses--I'm a fairly quick shot when I'm annoyed."
Stanford Beale pushed back the microscope and seated himself on the edge of the bench.
"You addressed me as Bridgers," he said, "you will find Mr. Bridgers in a room behind that stack of boxes. The fact is he surprised me spying and was all for shooting me up, but I induced him to come into my private office, so to speak, and the rest was easy--he dopes, doesn't he? He hadn't the strength of a rat. However, that is all beside the point; Dr. van Heerden, what have you to say against my arresting you out of hand on a conspiracy charge?"
"There are many things I can say," he said. "In the first place, you have no authority to arrest anybody. You're not a police officer but only an American amateur."
"American, yes; but amateur, no," said Beale gently. "As to the authority, why I guess I can arrest you first and get the authority after."
"On what charge?" demanded Milsom, "there is nothing secret about this place, except Doctor van Heerden's association with it--a professional man is debarred from mixing in commercial affairs. Is it a crime to run a----"
"A germicide factory," said van Heerden promptly.
"Suppose I know the character of this laboratory?" asked Beale quietly.
"Carry that kind of story to the police and see what steps they will take," said van Heerden scornfully. "My dear Mr. Beale, as I have told you once before, you have been reading too much exciting detective fiction."
"Very likely," he said, "but anyhow the little story that enthralls me just now is called the Green Terror, and I'm looking to you to supply a few of the missing pages. And I think you'll do it."
The doctor was lighting a cigarette, and he looked at the other over the flaring match with a gleam of malicious amusement in his eyes.