While the nurse was attending to the girl Tarling sought an interview with the medical officer in charge of the hospital.
"I don't think there's a great deal the matter with her," said the doctor. "In fact, she was fit for discharge from hospital two or three days ago, and it was only at her request that we let her stay. Do I understand that she is wanted in connection with the Daffodil Murder?"
"As a witness," said Tarling glibly. He realised that he was saying a ridiculous thing, because the fact that a warrant was out for Odette Rider must have been generally known to the local authorities. Her description had been carefully circulated, and that description must have come to the heads of hospitals and public institutions. The next words of the doctor confirmed his knowledge.
"As a witness, eh?" he said dryly. "Well, I don't want to pry into your secrets, or rather into the secrets of Scotland Yard, but she is fit to travel just as soon as you like."
There was a knock on the door, and the matron came into the doctor's office.
"Miss Rider wishes to see you, sir," she said, addressing Tarling, and the detective, taking up his hat, went back to the little ward.
He found the girl more composed but still deathly white. She was out of bed, sitting in a big arm chair, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and she motioned Tarling to pull up a chair to her side. She waited until after the door had closed behind the nurse, then she spoke.
"It was very silly of me to faint, Mr. Tarling but the news was so horrible and so unexpected. Won't you tell me all about it? You see, I have not read a newspaper since I have been in the hospital. I heard one of the nurses talk about the Daffodil Murder—that is not the——"
She hesitated, and Tarling nodded. He was lighter of heart now, almost cheerful. He had no doubt in his mind that the girl was innocent, and life had taken on a rosier aspect.
"Thornton Lyne," he began, "was murdered on the night of the 14th. He was last seen alive by his valet about half-past nine in the evening. Early next morning his body was found in Hyde Park. He had been shot dead, and an effort had been made to stanch the wound in his breast by binding a woman's silk night-dress round and round his body. On his breast somebody had laid a bunch of daffodils."
"Daffodils?" repeated the girl wonderingly. "But how——"
"His car was discovered a hundred yards from the place," Tarling continued, "and it was clear that he had been murdered elsewhere, brought to the Park in his car, and left on the sidewalk. At the time he was discovered he had on neither coat nor vest, and on his feet were a pair of list slippers."
"But I don't understand," said the bewildered girl. "What does it mean? Who had——" She stopped suddenly, and the detective saw her lips tighten together, as though to restrain her speech. Then suddenly she covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, it's terrible, terrible!" she whispered. "I never thought, I never dreamed—oh, it is terrible!"
Tarling laid his hand gently on her shoulder.
"Miss Rider," he said, "you suspect somebody of this crime. Won't you tell me?"
She shook her head without looking up.
"I can say nothing," she said.
"But don't you see that suspicion will attach to you?" urged Tarling. "A telegram was discovered amongst his belongings, asking him to call at your flat that evening."
She looked up quickly.
"A telegram from me?" she said. "I sent no telegram."
"Thank God for that!" cried Tarling fervently. "Thank God for that!"
"But I don't understand, Mr. Tarling. A telegram was sent to Mr. Lyne asking him to come to my flat? Did he go to my flat?"
Tarling nodded.
"I have reason to believe he did," he said gravely. "The murder was committed in your flat."
"My God!" she whispered. "You don't mean that! Oh, no, no, it is impossible!"
Briefly he recited all his discoveries. He knew that he was acting in a manner which, from the point of view of police ethics, was wholly wrong and disloyal. He was placing her in possession of all the clues and giving her an opportunity to meet and refute the evidence which had been collected against her. He told her of the bloodstains on the floor, and described the night-dress which had been found around Thornton Lyne's body.
"That was my night-dress," she said simply and without hesitation. "Go on, please, Mr. Tarling."
He told her of the bloody thumb-prints upon the door of the bureau.
"On your bed," he went on, "I found your dressing-case, half-packed."
She swayed forward, and threw out her hands, groping blindly.
"Oh, how wicked, how wicked!" she wailed "He did it, he did it!"
"Who?" demanded Tarling.
He took the girl by the shoulder and shook her.
"Who was the man? You must tell me. Your own life depends upon it. Don't you see, Odette, I want to help you? I want to clear your name of this terrible charge. You suspect somebody. I must have his name."
She shook her head and turned her pathetic face to his.
"I can't tell you," she said in a low voice. "I can say no more. I knew nothing of the murder until you told me. I had no idea, no thought.... I hated Thornton Lyne, I hated him, but I would not have hurt him ... it is dreadful, dreadful!"
Presently she grew calmer.
"I must go to London at once," she said. "Will you please take me back?"
She saw his embarrassment and was quick to understand its cause.
"You—you have a warrant, haven't you?"
He nodded.
"On the charge of—murder?"
He nodded again. She looked at him in silence for some moments.
"I shall be ready in half an hour," she said, and without a word the detective left the room.
He made his way back to the doctor's sanctum, and found that gentleman awaiting him impatiently.
"I say," said the doctor, "that's all bunkum about this girl being wanted as a witness. I had my doubts and I looked up the Scotland Yard warning which I received a couple of days ago. She's Odette Rider, and she's wanted on a charge of murder."
"Got it first time," said Tarling, dropping wearily into a chair. "Do you mind if I smoke?"
"Not a bit," said the doctor cheerfully. "I suppose you're taking her with you?"
Tarling nodded.
"I can't imagine a girl like that committing a murder," said Dr. Saunders. "She doesn't seem to possess the physique necessary to have carried out all the etceteras of the crime. I read the particulars in theMorning Globe. The person who murdered Thornton Lyne must have carried him from his car and laid him on the grass, or wherever he was found—and that girl couldn't lift a large-sized baby."
Tarling jerked his head in agreement.
"Besides," Dr. Saunders went on, "she hasn't the face of a murderer. I don't mean to say that because she's pretty she couldn't commit a crime, but there are certain types of prettiness which have their origin in spiritual beauty, and Miss Stevens, or Rider, as I suppose I should call her, is one of that type."
"I'm one with you there," said Tarling. "I am satisfied in my own mind that she did not commit the crime, but the circumstances are all against her."
The telephone bell jingled, and the doctor took up the receiver and spoke a few words.
"A trunk call," he said, explaining the delay in receiving acknowledgment from the other end of the wire.
He spoke again into the receiver and then handed the instrument across the table to Tarling.
"It's for you," he said. "I think it is Scotland Yard."
Tarling put the receiver to his ear.
"It is Whiteside," said a voice. "Is that you, Mr. Tarling? We've found the revolver."
"Where?" asked Tarling quickly.
"In the girl's flat," came the reply.
Tarling's face fell. But after all, that was nothing unexpected. He had no doubt in his mind at all that the murder had been committed in Odette Rider's flat, and, if that theory were accepted, the details were unimportant, as there was no reason in the world why the pistol should not be also found near the scene of the crime. In fact, it would have been remarkable if the weapon had not been discovered on those premises.
"Where was it?" he asked.
"In the lady's work-basket," said Whiteside. "Pushed to the bottom and covered with a lot of wool and odds and ends of tape."
"What sort of a revolver is it?" asked Tarling after a pause.
"A Colt automatic," was the reply. "There were six live cartridges in the magazine and one in the breach. The pistol had evidently been fired, for the barrel was foul. We've also found the spent bullet in the fireplace. Have you found your Miss Stevens?"
"Yes," said Tarling quietly. "Miss Stevens is Odette Rider."
He heard the other's whistle of surprise.
"Have you arrested her?"
"Not yet," said Tarling. "Will you meet the next train in from Ashford? I shall be leaving here in half an hour."
He hung up the receiver and turned to the doctor.
"I gather they've found the weapon," said the interested medico.
"Yes," replied Tarling, "they have found the weapon."
"Humph!" said the doctor, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "A pretty bad business." He looked at the other curiously. "What sort of a man was Thornton Lyne?" he asked.
Tarling shrugged his shoulders.
"Not the best of men, I'm afraid," he said; "but even the worst of men are protected by the law, and the punishment which will fall to the murderer——"
"Or murderess," smiled the doctor.
"Murderer," said Tarling shortly. "The punishment will not be affected by the character of the dead man."
Dr. Saunders puffed steadily at his pipe.
"It's rum a girl like that being mixed up in a case of this description," he said. "Most extraordinary."
There was a little tap at the door and the matron appeared.
"Miss Stevens is ready," she said, and Tarling rose.
Dr. Saunders rose with him, and, going to a shelf took down a large ledger, and placing it on his table, opened it and took up a pen.
"I shall have to mark her discharge," he said, turning over the leaves, and running his finger down the page. "Here she is—Miss Stevens, concussion and shock."
He looked at the writing under his hand and then lifted his eyes to the detective.
"When was this murder committed?" he asked.
"On the night of the fourteenth."
"On the night of the fourteenth?" repeated the doctor thoughtfully. "At what time?"
"The hour is uncertain," said Tarling, impatient and anxious to finish his conversation with this gossiping surgeon; "some time after eleven."
"Some time after eleven," repeated the doctor. "It couldn't have been committed before. When was the man last seen alive?"
"At half-past nine," said Tarling with a little smile. "You're not going in for criminal investigation, are you, doctor?"
"Not exactly," smiled Saunders. "Though I am naturally pleased to be in a position to prove the girl's innocence."
"Prove her innocence? What do you mean?" demanded Tarling quickly.
"The murder could not have been committed before eleven o'clock. The dead man was last seen alive at half-past nine."
"Well?" said Tarling.
"Well," repeated Dr. Saunders, "at nine o'clock the boat train left Charing Cross, and at half-past ten Miss Rider was admitted to this hospital suffering from shock and concussion."
For a moment Tarling said nothing and did nothing. He stood as though turned to stone, staring at the doctor with open mouth. Then he lurched forward, gripped the astonished medical man by the hand, and wrung it.
"That's the best bit of news I have had in my life," he said huskily.
The journey back to London was one the details of which were registered with photographic realism in Tarling's mind for the rest of his life. The girl spoke little, and he himself was content to meditate and turn over in his mind the puzzling circumstances which had surrounded Odette Rider's flight.
In the very silences which occurred between the interchanges of conversation was a comradeship and a sympathetic understanding which both the man and the girl would have found it difficult to define. Was he in love with her? He was shocked at the possibility of such a catastrophe overtaking him. Love had never come into his life. It was a hypothetical condition which he had never even considered. He had known men to fall in love, just as he had known men to suffer from malaria or yellow fever, without considering that the same experience might overtake him. A shy, reticent man, behind that hard mask was a diffidence unsuspected by his closest friends.
So that the possibility of being in love with Odette Rider disturbed his mind, because he lacked sufficient conceit to believe that such a passion could be anything but hopeless. That any woman could love him he could not conceive. And now her very presence, the fragrant nearness of her, at once soothed and alarmed him. Here was a detective virtually in charge of a woman suspected of murder—and he was frightened of her! He knew the warrant in his pocket would never be executed, and that Scotland Yard would not proceed with the prosecution, because, though Scotland Yard makes some big errors, it does not like to have its errors made public.
The journey was all too short, and it was not until the train was running slowly through a thin fog which had descended on London that he returned to the subject of the murder, and only then with an effort.
"I am going to take you to an hotel for the night," he said, "and in the morning I will ask you to come with me to Scotland Yard to talk to the Chief."
"Then I am not arrested?" she smiled.
"No, I don't think you're arrested." He smiled responsively. "But I'm afraid that you are going to be asked a number of questions which may be distressing to you. You see, Miss Rider, your actions have been very suspicious. You leave for the Continent under an assumed name, and undoubtedly the murder was committed in your flat."
She shivered.
"Please, please don't talk about that," she said in a low voice.
He felt a brute, but he knew that she must undergo an examination at the hands of men who had less regard for her feelings.
"I do wish you would be frank with me," he pleaded. "I am sure I could get you out of all your troubles without any difficulty."
"Mr. Lyne hated me," she said. "I think I touched him on his tenderest spot—poor man—his vanity. You yourself know how he sent that criminal to my flat in order to create evidence against me."
He nodded.
"Did you ever meet Stay before?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I think I have heard of him," she said. "I know that Mr. Lyne was interested in a criminal, and that this criminal worshipped him. Once Mr. Lyne brought him to the Stores and wanted to give him a job but the man would not accept it. Mr. Lyne once told me that Sam Stay would do anything in the world for him."
"Stay thinks you committed the murder," said Tarling bluntly. "Lyne has evidently told stories about you and your hatred for him, and I really think that Stay would have been more dangerous to you than the police, only fortunately the little crook has gone off his head."
She looked at him in astonishment.
"Mad?" she asked. "Poor fellow! Has this awful thing driven him ..."
Tarling nodded.
"He was taken to the County Asylum this morning. He had a fit in my office, and when he recovered he seemed to have lost his mind completely. Now, Miss Rider, you're going to be frank with me, aren't you?"
She looked at him again and smiled sadly.
"I'm afraid I shan't be any more frank than I have been, Mr. Tarling," she said. "If you want me to tell you why I assumed the name of Stevens, or why I ran away from London, I cannot tell you. I had a good reason——" she paused, "and I may yet have a better reason for running away...."
She nearly said "again" but checked the word.
He laid his hand on hers.
"When I told you of this murder," he said earnestly, "I knew by your surprise and agitation that you were innocent. Later the doctor was able to prove an alibi which cannot be shaken. But, Miss Rider, when I surprised you, you spoke as though you knew who committed the crime. You spoke of a man and it is that man's name I want."
She shook her head.
"That I shall never tell you," she said simply.
"But don't you realise that you may be charged with being an accessory before or after the act?" he urged. "Don't you see what it means to you and to your mother?"
Her eyes closed at the mention of her mother's name, as though to shut out the vision of some unpleasant possibility.
"Don't talk about it, don't talk about it!" she murmured, "please, Mr. Tarling! Do as you wish. Let the police arrest me or try me or hang me—but do not ask me to say any more, because I will not, I will not!"
Tarling sank back amongst the cushions, baffled and bewildered, and no more was said.
Whiteside was waiting for the train, and with him were two men who were unmistakably branded "Scotland Yard." Tarling drew him aside and explained the situation in a few words.
"Under the circumstances," he said, "I shall not execute the warrant."
Whiteside agreed.
"It is quite impossible that she could have committed the murder," he said. "I suppose the doctor's evidence is unshakable?"
"Absolutely," said Tarling, "and it is confirmed by the station master at Ashford, who has the time of the accident logged in his diary, and himself assisted to lift the girl from the train."
"Why did she call herself Miss Stevens?" asked Whiteside. "And what induced her to leave London so hurriedly?"
Tarling gave a despairing gesture.
"That is one of the things I should like to know," he said, "and the very matter upon which Miss Rider refuses to enlighten me. I am taking her to an hotel," he went on. "To-morrow I will bring her down to the Yard. But I doubt if the Chief can say anything that will induce her to talk."
"Was she surprised when you told her of the murder? Did she mention anybody's name?" asked Whiteside.
Tarling hesitated, and then, for one of the few times in his life, he lied.
"No," he said, "she was just upset ... she mentioned nobody."
He took the girl by taxi to the quiet little hotel he had chosen—a journey not without its thrills, for the fog was now thick—and saw her comfortably fixed.
"I can't be sufficiently grateful to you, Mr. Tarling, for your kindness," she said at parting "and if I could make your task any easier ... I would."
He saw a spasm of pain pass across her face.
"I don't understand it yet; it seems like a bad dream," she said half to herself. "I don't want to understand it somehow ... I want to forget, I want to forget!"
"What do you want to forget?" asked Tarling.
She shook her head.
"Don't ask me," she said. "Please, please, don't ask me!"
He walked down the big stairway, a greatly worried man. He had left the taxi at the door. To his surprise he found the cab had gone, and turned to the porter.
"What happened to my taxi?" he said. "I didn't pay him off."
"Your taxi, sir?" said the head porter. "I didn't see it go. I'll ask one of the boys."
As assistant porter who had been in the street told a surprising tale. A gentleman had come up out of the murk, had paid off the taxi, which had disappeared. The witness to this proceeding had not seen the gentleman's face. All he knew was that this mysterious benefactor had walked away in an opposite direction to that in which the cab had gone, and had vanished into the night.
Tarling frowned.
"That's curious," he said. "Get me another taxi."
"I'm afraid you'll find that difficult, sir." The hotel porter shook his head. "You see how the fog is—we always get them thick about here—it's rather late in the year for fogs..."
Tarling cut short his lecture on meteorology, buttoned up his coat, and turned out of the hotel in the direction of the nearest underground station.
The hotel to which he had taken the girl was situated in a quiet residential street, and at this hour of the night the street was deserted, and the fog added something to its normal loneliness.
Tarling was not particularly well acquainted with London, but he had a rough idea of direction. The fog was thick, but he could see the blurred nimbus of a street lamp, and was midway between two of these when he heard a soft step behind him.
It was the faintest shuffle of sound, and he turned quickly. Instinctively he threw up his hands and stepped aside.
Something whizzed past his head and struck the pavement with a thud.
"Sandbag," he noted mentally, and leapt at his assailant.
As quickly his unknown attacker jumped back. There was a deafening report. His feet were scorched with burning cordite, and momentarily he released his grip of his enemy's throat, which he had seized.
He sensed rather than saw the pistol raised again, and made one of those lightning falls which he had learnt in far-off days from Japanese instructors of ju-jitsu. Head over heels he went as the pistol exploded for the second time. It was a clever trick, designed to bring the full force of his foot against his opponent's knee. But the mysterious stranger was too quick for him, and when Tailing leapt to his feet he was alone.
But he had seen the face—big and white and vengeful. It was glimpse and guess-work, but he was satisfied that he knew his man.
He ran in the direction he thought the would-be assassin must have taken, but the fog was patchy and he misjudged. He heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and ran towards them, only to find that it was a policeman attracted by the sound of shots.
The officer had met nobody.
"He must have gone the other way," said Tarling, and raced off in pursuit, without, however, coming up with his attacker.
Slowly he retraced his footsteps to where he had left the policeman searching the pavement for same clue which would identify the assailant of the night.
The constable was using a small electric lamp which he had taken from his pocket.
"Nothing here, sir," he said. "Only this bit of red paper."
Tarling took the small square of paper from the man's hand and examined it under the light of the lamp—a red square on which were written four words in Chinese: "He brought this trouble upon himself."
It was the same inscription as had been found neatly folded in the waistcoat pocket of Thornton Lyne that morning he was discovered lying starkly dead.
Mr. Milburgh had a little house in one of the industrial streets of Camden Town. It was a street made up for the most part of blank walls, pierced at intervals with great gates, through which one could procure at times a view of gaunt factories and smoky-looking chimney-stacks.
Mr. Milburgh's house was the only residence in the road, if one excepted the quarters of caretakers and managers, and it was agreed by all who saw his tiny demesne, that Mr. Milburgh had a good landlord.
The "house" was a detached cottage in about half an acre of ground, a one-storey building, monopolising the space which might have been occupied by factory extension. Both the factory to the right and the left had made generous offers to acquire the ground, but Mr. Milburgh's landlord had been adamant. There were people who suggested that Mr. Milburgh's landlord was Mr. Milburgh himself. But how could that be? Mr. Milburgh's salary was something under £400 a year, and the cottage site was worth at least £4,000.
Canvey Cottage, as it was called, stood back from the road, behind a lawn, innocent of flowers, and the lawn itself was protected from intrusion by high iron railings which Mr. Milburgh's landlord had had erected at considerable cost. To reach the house it was necessary to pass through an iron gate and traverse a stone-flagged path to the door of the cottage.
On the night when Tarling of Scotland Yard was the victim of a murderous assault, Mr. Milburgh unlocked the gate and passed through, locking and double-locking the gate behind him. He was alone, and, as was his wont, he was whistling a sad little refrain which had neither beginning nor end. He walked slowly up the stone pathway, unlocked the door of his cottage, and stood only a moment on the doorstep to survey the growing thickness of the night, before he closed and bolted the door and switched on the electric light.
He was in a tiny hallway, plainly but nicely furnished. The note of luxury was struck by the Zohn etchings which hung on the wall, and which Mr. Milburgh stopped to regard approvingly. He hung up his coat and hat, slipped off the galoshes he was wearing (for it was wet underfoot), and, passing through a door which opened from the passage, came to his living room. The same simple note of furniture and decoration was observable here. The furniture was good, the carpet under his feet thick and luxurious. He snicked down another switch and an electric radiator glowed in the fireplace. Then he sat down at the big table, which was the most conspicuous article of furniture in the room. It was practically covered with orderly little piles of paper, most of them encircled with rubber bands. He did not attempt to touch or read them, but sat looking moodily at his blotting-pad, preoccupied and absent.
Presently he rose with a little grunt, and, crossing the room, unlocked a very commonplace and old-fashioned cupboard, the top of which served as a sideboard. From the cupboard he took a dozen little books and carried them to the table. They were of uniform size and each bore the figures of a year. They appeared to be, and indeed were, diaries, but they were not Mr. Milburgh's diaries. One day he chanced to go into Thornton Lyne's room at the Stores and had seen these books arrayed on a steel shelf of Lyne's private safe. The proprietor's room overlooked the ground floor of the Stores, and Thornton Lyne at the time was visible to his manager, and could not under any circumstances surprise him, so Mr. Milburgh had taken out one volume and read, with more than ordinary interest, the somewhat frank and expansive diary which Thornton Lyne had kept.
He had only read a few pages on that occasion, but later he had an opportunity of perusing the whole year's record, and had absorbed a great deal of information which might have been useful to him in the future, had not Thornton Lyne met his untimely end at the hands of an unknown murderer.
On the day when Thornton Lyne's body was discovered in Hyde Park with a woman's night-dress wrapped around the wound in his breast, Mr. Milburgh had, for reasons of expediency and assisted by a duplicate key of Lyne's safe, removed those diaries to a safer place. They contained a great deal that was unpleasant for Mr. Milburgh, particularly the current diary, for Thornton Lyne had set down not only his experiences, but his daily happenings, his thoughts, poetical and otherwise, and had stated very exactly and in libellous terms his suspicions of his manager.
The diary provided Mr. Milburgh with a great deal of very interesting reading matter, and now he turned to the page where he had left off the night before and continued his study. It was a page easy to find, because he had thrust between the leaves a thin envelope of foreign make containing certain slips of paper, and as he took out his improvised book mark a thought seemed to strike him, and he felt carefully in his pocket. He did not discover the thing for which he was searching, and with a smile he laid the envelope carefully on the table, and went on at the point where his studies had been interrupted.
"Lunched at the London Hotel and dozed away the afternoon. Weather fearfully hot. Had arranged to make a call upon a distant cousin—a man named Tarling—who is in the police force at Shanghai, but too much of a fag. Spent evening at Chu Han's dancing hall. Got very friendly with a pretty little Chinese girl who spoke pigeon English. Am seeing her to-morrow at Ling Foo's. She is called 'The Little Narcissus.' I called her 'My Little Daffodil'—"
"Lunched at the London Hotel and dozed away the afternoon. Weather fearfully hot. Had arranged to make a call upon a distant cousin—a man named Tarling—who is in the police force at Shanghai, but too much of a fag. Spent evening at Chu Han's dancing hall. Got very friendly with a pretty little Chinese girl who spoke pigeon English. Am seeing her to-morrow at Ling Foo's. She is called 'The Little Narcissus.' I called her 'My Little Daffodil'—"
Mr. Milburgh stopped in his reading.
"Little Daffodil!" he repeated, then looked at the ceiling and pinched his thick lips. "Little Daffodil!" he said again, and a big smile dawned on his face.
He was still engaged in reading when a bell shrilled in the hall. He rose to his feet and stood listening and the bell rang again. He switched off the light, pulled aside the thick curtain which hid the window, and peered out through the fog. He could just distinguish in the light of the street lamp two or three men standing at the gate. He replaced the curtain, turned up the light again, took the books in his arms and disappeared with them into the corridor. The room at the back was his bedroom, and into this he went, making no response to the repeated jingle of the bell for fully five minutes.
At the end of that time he reappeared, but now he was in his pyjamas, over which he wore a heavy dressing-gown. He unlocked the door, and shuffled in his slippers down the stone pathway to the gate.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Tarling. You know me," said a voice.
"Mr. Tarling?" said Milburgh in surprise. "Really this is an unexpected pleasure. Come in, come in, gentlemen."
"Open the gate," said Tarling briefly.
"Excuse me while I go and get the key," said Milburgh. "I didn't expect visitors at this hour of the night."
He went into the house, took a good look round his room, and then reappeared, taking the key from the pocket of his dressing-gown. It had been there all the time, if the truth be told, but Mr. Milburgh was a cautious man and took few risks.
Tarling was accompanied by Inspector Whiteside and another man, whom Milburgh rightly supposed was a detective. Only Tarling and the Inspector accepted his invitation to step inside, the third man remaining on guard at the gate.
Milburgh led the way to his cosy sitting-room.
"I have been in bed some hours, and I'm sorry to have kept you so long."
"Your radiator is still warm," said Tarling quietly, stooping to feel the little stove.
Mr. Milburgh chuckled.
"Isn't that clever of you to discover that?" he said admiringly. "The fact is, I was so sleepy when I went to bed, several hours ago, that I forgot to turn the radiator off, and it was only when I came down to answer the bell that I discovered I had left it switched on."
Tarling stooped and picked the butt end of a cigar out of the hearth. It was still alight.
"You've been smoking in your sleep, Mr. Milburgh," he said dryly.
"No, no," said the airy Mr. Milburgh. "I was smoking that when I came downstairs to let you in. I instinctively put a cigar in my mouth the moment I wake up in the morning. It is a disgraceful habit, and really is one of my few vices," he admitted. "I threw it down when I turned out the radiator."
Tarling smiled.
"Won't you sit down?" said Milburgh, seating himself in the least comfortable of the chairs. "You see," his smile was apologetic as he waved his hand to the table, "the work is frightfully heavy now that poor Mr. Lyne is dead. I am obliged to bring it home, and I can assure you, Mr. Tarling, that there are some nights when I work till daylight, getting things ready for the auditor."
"Do you ever take exercise?" asked Tarling innocently. "Little night walks in the fog for the benefit of your health?"
A puzzled frown gathered on Milburgh's face.
"Exercise, Mr. Tarling?" he said with an air of mystification. "I don't quite understand you. Naturally I shouldn't walk out on a night like this. What an extraordinary fog for this time of the year!"
"Do you know Paddington at all?"
"No," said Mr. Milburgh, "except that there is a station there which I sometimes use. But perhaps you will explain to me the meaning of this visit?"
"The meaning is," said Tarling shortly, "that I have been attacked to-night by a man of your build and height, who fired twice at me at close quarters. I have a warrant—" Mr. Milburgh's eyes narrowed—"I have a warrant to search this house."
"For what?" demanded Milburgh boldly.
"For a revolver or an automatic pistol and anything else I can find."
Milburgh rose.
"You're at liberty to search the house from end to end," he said. "Happily, it is a small one, as my salary does not allow of an expensive establishment."
"Do you live here alone?" asked Tarling.
"Quite," replied Milburgh. "A woman comes in at eight o'clock to-morrow morning to cook my breakfast and make the place tidy, but I sleep here by myself. I am very much hurt," he was going on.
"You will be hurt much worse," said Tarling dryly and proceeded to the search.
It proved to be a disappointing one, for there was no trace of any weapon, and certainly no trace of the little red slips which he had expected to find in Milburgh's possession. For he was not searching for the man who had assailed him, but for the man who had killed Thornton Lyne.
He came back to the little sitting-room where Milburgh had been left with the Inspector and apparently he was unruffled by his failure.
"Now, Mr. Milburgh," he said brusquely, "I want to ask you: Have you ever seen a piece of paper like this before?"
He took a slip from his pocket and spread it on the table. Milburgh looked hard at the Chinese characters on the crimson square, and then nodded.
"You have?" said Tarling in surprise.
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Milburgh complacently. "I should be telling an untruth if I said I had not. Nothing is more repugnant to me than to deceive anybody."
"That I can imagine," said Tarling.
"I am sorry you are sarcastic, Mr. Tarling," said the reproachful Milburgh, "but I assure you that I hate and loathe an untruth."
"Where have you seen these papers?"
"On Mr. Lyne's desk," was the surprising answer
"On Lyne's desk?"
Milburgh nodded.
"The late Mr. Thornton Lyne," he said, "came back from the East with a great number of curios, and amongst them were a number of slips of paper covered with Chinese characters similar to this. I do not understand Chinese," he said, "because I have never had occasion to go to China. The characters may have been different one from the other, but to my unsophisticated eye they all look alike."
"You've seen these slips on Lyne's desk?" said Tarling. "Then why did you not tell the police before? You know that the police attach a great deal of importance to the discovery of one of these things in the dead man's pocket?"
Mr. Milburgh nodded.
"It is perfectly true that I did not mention the fact to the police," he said, "but you understand Mr. Tarling that I was very much upset by the sad occurrence, which drove everything else out of my mind. It would have been quite possible that you would have found one or two of these strange inscriptions in this very house." He smiled in the detective's face. "Mr. Lyne was very fond of distributing the curios he brought from the East to his friends," he went on. "He gave me that dagger you see hanging on the wall, which he bought at some outlandish place in his travels. He may have given me a sample of these slips. I remember his telling me a story about them, which I cannot for the moment recall."
He would have continued retailing reminiscences of his late employer, but Tarling cut him short, and with a curt good night withdrew. Milburgh accompanied him to the front gate and locked the door upon the three men before he went back to his sitting-room smiling quietly to himself.
"I am certain that the man was Milburgh," said Tarling. "I am as certain as that I am standing here."
"Have you any idea why he should want to out you?" asked Whiteside.
"None in the world," replied Tarling. "Evidently my assailant was a man who had watched my movements and had probably followed the girl and myself to the hotel in a cab. When I disappeared inside he dismissed his own and then took the course of dismissing my cab, which he could easily do by paying the man his fare and sending him off. A cabman would accept that dismissal without suspicion. He then waited for me in the fog and followed me until he got me into a quiet part of the road, where he first attempted to sandbag and then to shoot me."
"But why?" asked Whiteside again. "Suppose Milburgh knew something about this murder—which is very doubtful—what benefit would it be to him to have you put out of the way?"
"If I could answer that question," replied Tarling grimly, "I could tell you who killed Thornton Lyne."
All trace of the fog of the night before had disappeared when Tarling looked out from his bedroom window later that morning. The streets were flooded with yellow sunshine, and there was a tang in the air which brought the colour to the cheek and light to the eye of the patient Londoner.
Tarling stretched his arms and yawned in the sheer luxury of living, before he took down his silk dressing-gown and went in to the breakfast which Ling Chu had laid for him.
The blue-bloused Chinaman who stood behind his master's chair, poured out the tea and laid a newspaper on one side of the plate and letters on the other. Tarling ate his breakfast in silence and pushed away the plate.
"Ling Chu," he said in the vernacular of Lower China, "I shall lose my name as the Man Hunter, for this case puzzles me beyond any other."
"Master," said the Chinaman in the same language, "there is a time in all cases, when the hunter feels that he must stop and weep. I myself had this feeling when I hunted down Wu Fung, the strangler of Hankow. Yet," he added philosophically, "one day I found him and he is sleeping on the Terrace of Night."
He employed the beautiful Chinese simile for death.
"Yesterday I found the little-young-woman," said Tarling after a pause. In this quaint way did he refer to Odette Rider.
"You may find the little-young-woman and yet not find the killer," said Ling Chu, standing by the side of the table, his hands respectfully hidden under his sleeves. "For the little-young-woman did not kill the white-faced man."
"How do you know?" asked Tarling; and the Chinaman shook his head.
"The little-young-woman has no strength, master," he said. "Also it is not known that she has skill in the driving of the quick cart."
"You mean the motor?" asked Tarling quickly, and Ling Chu nodded.
"By Jove! I never thought of that," said Tarling. "Of course, whoever killed Thornton Lyne must have put his body in the car and driven him to the Park. But how do you know that she does not drive?"
"Because I have asked," said the Chinaman simply. "Many people know the little-young-woman at the great Stores where the white-faced man lived, and they all say that she does not drive the quick cart."
Tarling considered for a while.
"Yes, it is true talk," he said. "The little-young-woman did not kill the white-faced man, because she was many miles away when the murder was committed. That we know. The question is, who did?"
"The Hunter of Men will discover," said Ling Chu
"I wonder," said Tarling.
He dressed and went to Scotland Yard. He had an appointment with Whiteside, and later intended accompanying Odette Rider to an interview before the Assistant Commissioner. Whiteside was at Scotland Yard before him, and when Tarling walked into his room was curiously examining an object which lay before him on a sheet of paper. It was a short-barrelled automatic pistol.
"Hullo!" he said, interested. "Is that the gun that killed Thornton Lyne?"
"That's the weapon," said the cheerful Whiteside. "An ugly-looking brute, isn't it?"
"Where did you say it was discovered?"
"At the bottom of the girl's work-basket."
"This has a familiar look to me," said Tarling, lifting the instrument from the table. "By-the-way, is the cartridge still in the chamber?"
Whiteside shook his head.
"No, I removed it," he said. "I've taken the magazine out too."
"I suppose you've sent out the description and the number to all the gunsmiths?"
Whiteside nodded.
"Not that it's likely to be of much use," he said. "This is an American-made pistol, and unless it happens to have been sold in England there is precious little chance of our discovering its owner."
Tarling was looking at the weapon, turning it over and over in his hand. Presently he looked at the butt and uttered an exclamation. Following the direction of his eyes, Whiteside saw two deep furrows running diagonally across the grip.
"What are they?" he asked.
"They look like two bullets fired at the holder of the revolver some years ago, which missed him but caught the butt."
Whiteside laughed.
"Is that a piece of your deduction, Mr. Tarling?" he asked.
"No," said Tarling, "that is a bit of fact. That pistol is my own!"
"Yourpistol?" said Whiteside incredulously, "my dear good chap, you are mad! How could it be your pistol?"
"It is nevertheless my pistol," said Tarling quietly. "I recognised it the moment I saw it on your desk, and thought there must be some mistake. These furrows prove that there is no mistake at all. It has been one of my most faithful friends, and I carried it with me in China for six years."
Whiteside gasped.
"And you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that Thornton Lyne was killed with your pistol?"
Tarling nodded.
"It is an amazing but bewildering fact," he said. "That is undoubtedly my pistol, and it is the same that was found in Miss Rider's room at Carrymore Mansions, and I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that it was by a shot fired from this weapon that Thornton Lyne lost his life."
There was a long silence.
"Well, that beats me," said Whiteside, laying the weapon on the table. "At every turn some new mystery arises. This is the second jar I've had to-day."
"The second?" said Tarling. He put the question idly, for his mind was absorbed in this new and to him tremendous aspect of the crime. Thornton Lyne had been killed by his pistol! That to him was the most staggering circumstance which had been revealed since he had come into the case.
"Yes," Whiteside was saying, "it's the second setback."
With an effort Tarling brought his mind back from speculating upon the new mystery.
"Do you remember this?" said Whiteside. He opened his safe and took out a big envelope, from which he extracted a telegram.
"Yes, this is the telegram supposed to have been sent by Odette Rider, asking Mr. Lyne to call at her flat. It was found amongst the dead man's effects when the house was searched."
"To be exact," corrected Whiteside, "it was discovered by Lyne's valet—a man named Cole, who seems to be a very honest person, against whom no suspicion could be attached. I had him here this morning early to make further inquiries into Lyne's movements on the night of the murder. He's in the next room, by-the-way. I'll bring him in."
He pushed a bell and gave his instructions to the uniformed policeman who came. Presently the door opened again and the officer ushered in a respectable-looking, middle-aged man, who had "domestic service" written all over him.
"Just tell Mr. Tarling what you told me," said Whiteside.
"About that telegram, sir?" asked Cole. "Yes, I'm afraid I made a bit of a mistake there, but I got flurried with this awful business and I suppose I lost my head a bit."
"What happened?" asked Tarling.
"Well, sir, this telegram I brought up the next day to Mr. Whiteside—that is to say, the day after the murder——" Tarling nodded. "And when I brought it up I made a false statement. It's a thing I've never done before in my life, but I tell you I was scared by all these police inquiries."
"What was the false statement?" asked Tarling quickly.
"Well, sir," said the servant, twisting his hat nervously, "I said that it had been opened by Mr. Lyne. As a matter of fact, the telegram wasn't delivered until a quarter of an hour after Mr. Lyne left the place. It was I who opened it when I heard of the murder. Then, thinking that I should get into trouble for sticking my nose into police business, I told Mr. Whiteside that Mr. Lyne had opened it."
"He didn't receive the telegram?" asked Tarling.
"No, sir."
The two detectives looked at one another.
"Well, what do you make of that, Whiteside?"
"I'm blest if I know what to think of it," said Whiteside, scratching his head. "We depended upon that telegram to implicate the girl. It breaks a big link in the chain against her."
"Supposing it was not already broken," said Tarling almost aggressively.
"And it certainly removes the only possible explanation for Lyne going to the flat on the night of the murder. You're perfectly sure, Cole, that that telegram did not reach Mr. Lyne?"
"Perfectly, sir," said Cole emphatically. "I took it in myself. After Mr. Lyne drove off I went to the door of the house to get a little fresh air, and I was standing on the top step when it came up. If you notice, sir, it's marked 'received at 9.20'—that means the time it was received at the District Post Office, and that's about two miles from our place. It couldn't possibly have got to the house before Mr. Lyne left, and I was scared to death that you clever gentlemen would have seen that."
"I was so clever that I didn't see it," admitted Tarling with a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Cole, that will do."
When the man had gone, he sat down on a chair opposite Whiteside and thrust his hands into his pockets with a gesture of helplessness.
"Well, I'm baffled," he said. "Let me recite the case, Whiteside, because it's getting so complicated that I'm almost forgetting its plainest features. On the night of the fourteenth Thornton Lyne is murdered by some person or persons unknown, presumably in the flat of Odette Rider, his former cashier, residing at Carrymore Mansions. Bloodstains are found upon the floor, and there is other evidence, such as the discovery of the pistol and the spent bullet, which emphasises the accuracy of that conclusion. Nobody sees Mr. Lyne come into the flat or go out. He is found in Hyde Park the next morning without his coat or vest, a lady's silk night-dress, identified as Odette Rider's, wrapped tightly round his breast, and two of Odette Rider's handkerchiefs are found over the wound. Upon his body are a number of daffodils, and his car, containing his coat, vest and boots, is found by the side of the road a hundred yards away. Have I got it right?"
Whiteside nodded.
"Whatever else is at fault," he smiled, "your memory is unchallengeable."
"A search of the bedroom in which the crime was committed reveals a bloodstained thumb-print on the white bureau, and a suit-case, identified as Odette Rider's, half-packed upon the bed. Later, a pistol, which is mine, is found in the lady's work-basket, hidden under repairing material. The first suggestion is that Miss Rider is the murderess. That suggestion is refuted, first by the fact that she was at Ashford when the murder was committed, unconscious as a result of a railway accident; and the second point in her favour is that the telegram discovered by Lyne's valet, purporting to be signed by the girl, inviting Lyne to her flat at a certain hour, was not delivered to the murdered man."
He rose to his feet.
"Come along and see Cresswell," he said. "This case is going to drive me mad!"
Assistant Commissioner Cresswell heard the story the two men had to tell, and if he was astounded he did not betray any signs of his surprise.
"This looks like being the murder case of the century," he said. "Of course, you cannot proceed any further against Miss Rider, and you were wise not to make the arrest. However, she must be kept under observation, because apparently she knows, or think she knows, the person who did commit the murder. She must be watched day and night, and sooner or later, she will lead you to the man upon whom her suspicions rest.
"Whiteside had better see her," he said, turning to Tarling. "He may get a new angle of her view. I don't think there's much use in bringing her down here. And, by-the-way, Tarling, all the accounts of Lyne's Stores have been placed in the hands of a clever firm of chartered accountants—Dashwood and Solomon, of St. Mary Axe. If you suspect there has been any peculation on the part of Lyne's employees, and if that peculation is behind the murder, we shall probably learn something which will give you a clue."
Tarling nodded.
"How long will the examination take?" he asked.
"They think a week. The books have been taken away this morning—which reminds me that your friend, Mr. Milburgh—I think that is his name—is giving every assistance to the police to procure a faithful record of the firm's financial position."
He looked up at Tarling and scratched his nose.
"So it was committed with your pistol, Tarling?" he said with a little smile. "That sounds bad."
"It sounds mad," laughed Tarling. "I'm going straight back to discover what happened to my pistol and how it got into that room. I know that it was safe a fortnight ago because I took it to a gunsmith to be oiled."
"Where do you keep it as a rule?"
"In the cupboard with my colonial kit," said Tarling. "Nobody has access to my room except Ling Chu, who is always there when I'm out."
"Ling Chu is your Chinese servant?"
"Not exactly a servant," smiled Tarling. "He is one of the best native thief catchers I have ever met. He is a man of the greatest integrity and I would trust him with my life."
"Murdered with your pistol, eh?" asked the Commissioner.
There was a little pause and then:
"I suppose Lyne's estate will go to the Crown? He has no relations and no heir."
"You're wrong there," said Tarling quietly.
The Commissioner looked up in surprise.
"Has he an heir?" he asked.
"He has a cousin," said Tarling with a little smile, "a relationship close enough to qualify him for Lyne's millions, unfortunately."
"Why unfortunately?" asked Mr. Cresswell.
"Because I happen to be the heir," said Tarling.
Tarling walked out of Scotland Yard on to the sunlit Embankment, trouble in his face. He told himself that the case was getting beyond him and that it was only the case and its development which worried him. The queer little look which had dawned on the Commissioner's face when he learnt that the heir to the murdered Thornton Lyne's fortune was the detective who was investigating his murder, and that Tarling's revolver had been found in the room where the murder had been committed, aroused nothing but an inward chuckle.
That suspicion should attach to him was, he told himself, poetic justice, for in his day he himself had suspected many men, innocent or partly innocent.
He walked up the stairs to his room and found Ling Chu polishing the meagre stock of silver which Tarling possessed. Ling Chu was a thief-catcher and a great detective, but he had also taken upon himself the business of attending to Tarling's personal comfort. The detective spoke no word, out went straight to the cupboard where he kept his foreign kit. On a shelf in neat array and carefully folded, were the thin white drill suits he wore in the tropics. His sun helmet hung on a peg, and on the opposite wall was a revolver holster hanging by a strap. He lifted the holster. It was empty. He had had no doubts in his mind that the holster would be empty and closed the door with a troubled frown.
"Ling Chu," he said quietly.
"You speak me, Lieh Jen?" said the man, putting down the spoons and rubber he was handling.
"Where is my revolver?"
"It is gone, Lieh Jen," said the man calmly.
"How long has it been gone?"
"I miss him four days," said Ling Chu calmly;
"Who took it?" demanded Tarling.
"I miss him four days," said the man.
There was an interval of silence, and Tarling nodded his head slowly.
"Very good, Ling Chu," he said, "there is no more to be said."
For all his outward calm, he was distressed in mind.
Was it possible that anybody could have got into the room in Ling Chu's absence—he could only remember one occasion when they had been out together, and that was the night he had gone to the girl's flat and Ling Chu had shadowed him.
What if Ling Chu——?
He dismissed the thought as palpably absurd. What interest could Ling Chu have in the death of Lyne, whom he had only seen once, the day that Thornton Lyne had called Tarling into consultation at the Stores?
That thought was too fantastic to entertain, but nevertheless it recurred again and again to him and in the end he sent his servant away with a message to Scotland Yard, determined to give even his most fantastic theory as thorough and impartial an examination as was possible.
The flat consisted of four rooms and a kitchen. There was Tarling's bedroom communicating with his dining and sitting-room. There was a spare-room in which he kept his boxes and trunks—it was in this room that the revolver had been put aside—and there was the small room occupied by Ling Chu. He gave his attendant time to get out of the house and well on his journey before he rose from the deep chair where he had been sitting in puzzled thought and began his inspection.
Ling Chu's room was small and scrupulously clean. Save for the bed and a plain black-painted box beneath the bed, there was no furniture. The well-scrubbed boards were covered with a strip of Chinese matting and the only ornamentation in the room was supplied by a tiny red lacquer vase which stood on the mantelpiece.
Tarling went back to the outer door of the flat and locked it before continuing his search. If there was any clue to the mystery of the stolen revolver it would be found here, in this black box. A Chinaman keeps all his possessions "within six sides," as the saying goes, and certainly the box was very well secured. It was ten minutes before he managed to find a key to shift the two locks with which it was fastened.
The contents of the box were few. Ling Chu's wardrobe was not an extensive one and did little more than half fill the receptacle. Very carefully he lifted out the one suit of clothes, the silk shirts, the slippers and the odds and ends of the Chinaman's toilet and came quickly to the lower layer. Here he discovered two lacquer boxes, neither of which were locked or fastened.
The first of these contained sewing material, the second a small package wrapped in native paper and carefully tied about with ribbon. Tarling undid the ribbon, opened the package and found to his surprise a small pad of newspaper cuttings. In the main they were cuttings from colloquial journals printed in Chinese characters, but there were one or two paragraphs evidently cut from one of the English papers published in Shanghai.
He thought at first that these were records of cases in which Ling Chu had been engaged, and though he was surprised that the Chinaman should have taken the trouble to collect these souvenirs—especially the English cuttings—he did not think at first that there was any significance in the act. He was looking for some clue—what he knew not—which would enable him to explain to his own satisfaction the mystery of the filched pistol.
He read the first of the European cuttings idly, but presently his eyes opened wide.