69
XXII HILDA GLAUM LEADS THE WAY 177
XXIII AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT 185
XXIV THE GREEN RUST FACTORY 192
XXV THE LAST MAN AT THE BENCH 198
XXVI THE SECRET OF THE GREEN RUST 204
XXVII A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD 212
XXVIII THE COMING OF DR. MILSOM 219
XXIX THE LOST CODE 227
XXX THE WATCH 233
XXXI A CORNCHANDLER'S BILL 240
XXXII THE END OF VAN HEERDEN 244

CHAPTER I

THE PASSING OF JOHN MILLINBORN

"I don't know whether there's a law that stops my doing this, Jim; but
if there is, you've got to get round it. You're a lawyer and you know
the game. You're my pal and the best pal I've had, Jim, and you'll do it
for me."

The dying man looked up into the old eyes that were watching him with
such compassion and read their acquiescence.

No greater difference could be imagined than existed between the man on
the bed and the slim neat figure who sat by his side. John Millinborn,
broad-shouldered, big-featured, a veritable giant in frame and even in
his last days suggesting the enormous strength which had been his in his
prime, had been an outdoor man, a man of large voice and large capable
hands; James Kitson had been a student from his youth up and had spent
his manhood in musty offices, stuffy courts, surrounded by crackling
briefs and calf-bound law-books.

Yet, between these two men, the millionaire ship-builder and the
successful solicitor, utterly different in their tastes and their modes
of life, was a friendship deep and true. Strange that death should take
the strong and leave the weak; so thought James Kitson as he watched his
friend.

"I'll do what can be done, John. You leave a great responsibility upon
the girl--a million and a half of money."

The sick man nodded.

"I get rid of a greater one, Jim. When my father died he left a hundred
thousand between us, my sister and I. I've turned my share into a
million, but that is by the way. Because she was a fairly rich girl and
a wilful girl, Jim, she broke her heart. Because they knew she had the
money the worst men were attracted to her--and she chose the worst of
the worst!"

He stopped speaking to get his breath.

"She married a plausible villain who ruined her--spent every sou and
left her with a mountain of debt and a month-old baby. Poor Grace died
and he married aga