The Green Rust | Page 3

language that this hardened lawyer had ever
heard.
"Pardon, pardon," he said, stopping as suddenly. "Man of the world, eh?
You'll understand that when a gentleman has grievances..." He fumbled
in his waistcoat-pocket and found a black-rimmed monocle and
inserted it in his eye. There was an obscenity in the appearance of this
foul wreck of a man which made the lawyer feel physically sick.
"Trespassing, by gad!" He went back to his first conceit and his voice
rasped with malignity. "Gad! If I had my way with people! I'd slit their
throats, I would, sir. I'd stick pins in their eyes-- red-hot pins. I'd boil
them alive--"

Hitherto the lawyer had not spoken, but now his repulsion got the better
of his usually equable temper.
"What are you doing here?" he asked sternly. "You're on private
property--take your beastliness elsewhere."
The man glared at him and laughed.
"Trespassing!" he sneered. "Trespassing! Very good--your servant,
sir!"
He swept his derby hat from his head (the lawyer saw that he was bald),
and turning, strutted back through the plantation the way he had come.
It was not the way out and Kitson was half-inclined to follow and see
the man off the estate. Then he remembered the urgency of his errand
and continued his journey to the village. On his way back he looked
about, but there was no trace of the unpleasant intruder. Who was he?
he wondered. Some broken derelict with nothing but the memory of
former vain splendours and the rags of old fineries, nursing a dear
hatred for some more fortunate fellow.
Nearly an hour had passed before he again panted up to the levelled
shelf on which the cottage stood.
The doctor was sitting at the window as Kitson passed.
"How is he?"
"About the same. He had one paroxysm. Is that the strychnine? I can't
tell you how much obliged I am to you."
He took the small packet and placed it on the window-ledge and Mr.
Kitson passed into the house.
"Honestly, doctor, what do you think of his chance?" he asked.
Dr. van Heerden shrugged his shoulders.
"Honestly, I do not think he will recover consciousness."

"Heavens!"
The lawyer was shocked. The tragic suddenness of it all stunned him.
He had thought vaguely that days, even weeks, might pass before the
end came.
"Not recover consciousness?" he repeated in a whisper.
Instinctively he was drawn to the room where his friend lay and the
doctor followed him.
John Millinborn lay on his back, his eyes closed, his face a ghastly grey.
His big hands were clutching at his throat, his shirt was torn open at the
breast. The two windows, one at each end of the room, were wide, and
a gentle breeze blew the casement curtains. The lawyer stooped, his
eyes moist, and laid his hand upon the burning forehead.
"John, John," he murmured, and turned away, blinded with tears.
He wiped his face with a pocket-handkerchief and walked to the
window, staring out at the serene loveliness of the scene. Over the
weald a great aeroplane droned to the sea. The green downs were
dappled white with grazing flocks, and beneath the windows the
ordered beds blazed and flamed with flowers, crimson and gold and
white.
As he stood there the man he had met in the plantation came to his
mind and he was half-inclined to speak to the doctor of the incident.
But he was in no mood for the description and the speculation which
would follow. Restlessly he paced into the bedroom. The sick man had
not moved and again the lawyer returned. He thought of the girl, that
girl whose name and relationship with John Millinborn he alone knew.
What use would she make of the millions which, all unknown to her,
she would soon inherit? What--
"Jim, Jim!"
He turned swiftly.

It was John Millinborn's voice.
"Quick--come..."
The doctor had leapt into the room and made his way to the bed.
Millinborn was sitting up, and as the lawyer moved swiftly in the
doctor's tracks he saw his wide eyes staring.
"Jim, he has..."
His head dropped forward on his breast and the doctor lowered him
slowly to the pillow.
"What is it, John? Speak to me, old man..."
"I'm afraid there is nothing to be done," said the doctor as he drew up
the bedclothes.
"Is he dead?" whispered the lawyer fearfully.
"No--but--"
He beckoned the other into the big room and, after a glance at the
motionless figure, Kitson followed.
"There's something very strange--who is that?"
He pointed through the open window at the clumsy figure of a man
who was blundering wildly down the slope which led to the plantation.
Kitson recognized the man immediately. It was the uninvited visitor
whom he had met in the