A SCHEME TO STARVE THE WORLD
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 certainty of relief. We shall have
to pay, Britain, France, America, Italy--we shall have to pay. We shall
pay in gold, we may have to pay in battleships and material. Our stocks
of corn have been allowed to fall and to-day we have less than a month's
supply in England. Every producing country in the world will stop
exporting instantly, and they, too, with the harvest nearly due, will be
near the end of their stocks. Now tell me, Mr. Beale, in your judgment,
is it possible to save the crops by local action?"
Beale shook his head.
"I doubt it," he said; "it would mean the mobilisation of millions of
men, the surrounding of all corn-tracts--and even then I doubt if your
protection would be efficacious. You could send the stuff into the
fields by a hundred methods. The only thing to do is to catch van
Heerden and stifle the scheme at its fountain-head."
The Chief of the Foreign Ministry strode up and down the room, his hands
thrust into his pockets, his head upon his breast.
"It means our holding out for twelve months," he said. "Can we do it?"
"It means more than that, sir," said Beale quietly.
Lord Sevington stopped and faced him.
"More than that? What do you mean?"
"It may mean a cornless world for a generation," said Beale. "I have
consulted the best authorities, and they agree that the soil will be
infected for ten years."
The four men looked at one another helplessly.
"Why," said Sevington, in awe, "the whole social and industrial fabric
of the world would crumble into dust. America would be ruined for a
hundred years, there would be deaths by the million. It means the very
end of civilization!"
Beale glanced from one to the other of the little group.
Sevington, with his hard old face set in harsh lines, a stony sphinx of
a man showing no other sign of his emotions than a mop of ruffled hair.
Kitson, an old man and almost as hard of feature, yet of the two more
human, stood with pursed lip, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if he were
studying the geometrical pattern of the parquet for future reference.
McNorton, big, red-faced and expressionless, save that his mouth dropped
and that his arms were tightly folded as if he were hugging himself in a
sheer ecstasy of pain. From the street outside came the roar and rumble
of London's traffic, the dull murmur of countless voices and the shrill
high-pitched whine of a newsboy.
Men and women were buying newspapers and seeing no more in the scare
headlines than a newspaper sensation.
To-morrow they might read further and grow a little uncomfortable, but
for the moment they were only mildly interested, and the majority would
turn to the back page for the list of "arrivals" at Lingfield.
"It is unbelievable," said Kitson. "I have exactly the same feeling I
had on August 1, 1914--that sensation of unreality."
His voice seemed to arouse the Foreign Minister from the meditation into
which he had fallen, and he started.
"Beale," he said, "you have unlimited authority to act--Mr. McNorton,
you will go back to Scotland Yard and ask the Chief Commissioner to
attend at the office of the Privy Seal. Mr. Beale will keep in touch
with me all the time."
Without any formal leave-taking he made his exit, followed by
Superintendent McNorton.
"That's a badly rattled man," said Kitson shrewdly, "the Government may
fall on this news. What will you do?"
"Get van Heerden," said the other.
"It is the job of your life," said Kitson quietly, and Beale knew within
a quarter of an hour that the lawyer did not exaggerate.
Van Heerden had disappeared with dramatic suddenness. Detectives who
visited his flat discovered that his personal belongings had been
removed in the early hours of the morning. He had left with two trunks
(which were afterwards found in a cloak-room of a London railway
terminus) and a companion who was identified as Milsom. Whether the car
had gone east or north, south or west, nobody knew.
In the early editions of the evening newspapers, side by side with the
account of the panic scenes on 'Change was the notice:
"The Air Ministry announce the suspension of Order 63 of
Trans-Marine Flight Regulations. No aeroplane will be allowed to
cross the coastline by day or night without first descending at a
coast control station. Aerial patrols have orders to force down any
machine which does not obey the 'Descend' signal. This signal is
now displayed at all coast stations."
Every railway station in England, every port of embarkation, were
watched by police. The one photograph of van Heerden in existence,
thousands of copies of an excellent snapshot taken by one of Beale's
assistants, were distributed by aeroplane to every district centre. At
two o'clock Hilda Glaum was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street. She
showed neither surprise nor resentment and offered no information as to
van Heerden's whereabouts.
Throughout the afternoon there were the usual crops of false arrest and
detention of perfectly innocent people, and at five o'clock it was
announced that all telegraphic communication with the Continent and with
the Western Hemisphere was suspended until further notice.
Beale came back from Barking, whither he had gone to interview a
choleric commercial traveller who bore some facial resemblance to van
Heerden, and had been arrested in consequence, and discovered that
something like a Council of War was being held in Kitson's private room.
McNorton and two of his assistants were present. There was an
Under-Secretary from the Foreign Office, a great scientist whose
services had been called upon, and a man whom he recognized as a member
of the Committee of the Corn Exchange. He shook his head in answer to
McNorton's inquiring glance, and would have taken his seat at the table,
but Kitson, who had risen on his entrance, beckoned him to the window.
"We can do without you for a little while, Beale," he said, lowering his
voice. "There's somebody there," he jerked his head to a door which led
to another room of his suite, "who requires an explanation, and I think
your time will be so fully occupied in the next few days that you had
better seize this opportunity whilst you have it."
"Miss Cresswell!" said Beale, in despair.
The old man nodded slowly.
"What does she know?"
"That is for you to discover," said Kitson gently, and pushed him toward
the door.
With a quaking heart he turned the knob and stepped guiltily into the
presence of the girl who in the eyes of the law was his wife.