Without a word Beale thrust him aside. He had taken one step to the door
when he stopped: At the end of the room had been the three long
anatomical cases. Now there were only two. One had gone. He did not stop
to question the man. He bounded through the door and raced down the
stairs. There was no vehicle in sight and only a few pedestrians. At the
corner of the street he found a policeman who had witnessed nothing
unusual and had not seen any conveyance carrying a box.

As he returned slowly to the entrance of Krooman Mansions something made
him look up. The doctor was leaning out of the window smoking a cigar.

"Found her?" he asked mockingly.

Beale made no reply. He came up the stairs, walked straight through the
open door of the doctor's flat and confronted that calm man as he leant
against the table, his hands gripping the edge, a cigar in the corner of
his mouth and a smile of quiet amusement on his bearded lips.

"Well?" he asked, "did you find her?"

"I did not find her, but I am satisfied that _you_ will."

Van Heerden's eyes did not falter.

"I am beginning to think, Mr. Beale, that over-indulgence in alcoholic
stimulants has turned your brain," he said mockingly. "You come into my
apartment and demand, with an heroic gesture, where I am concealing a
beautiful young lady, in whose welfare I am at least as much interested
as you, since that lady is my fiancee and is going to be my wife."

There was a pause.

"She is going to be your wife, is she?" said Beale softly. "I
congratulate you if I cannot congratulate her. And when is this
interesting engagement to be announced?"

"It is announced at this moment," said the doctor. "The lady is on her
way to Liverpool, where she will stay with an aunt of mine. You need not
trouble to ask me for her address, because I shall not give it to you."

"I see," said Beale.

"You come in here, I repeat, demanding with all the gesture and voice of
melodrama, the hiding-place of my fiancee,"--he enunciated the two last
words with great relish--"you ask to search my rooms and I give you
permission. You lock yourself in through your own carelessness and when
I release you you have a revolver in your hand, and are even more
melodramatic than ever. I know what you are going to say----"

"You are a clever man," interrupted Beale, "for I don't know myself."

"You were going to say, or you think, that I have some sinister purpose
in concealing this lady. Well, to resume m