Tarling was less in a dilemma than in that condition of uncertainty which is produced by having no definite plans one way or the other. There was no immediate necessity for his return to town and his annoyance at finding the last train gone was due rather to a natural desire to sleep in his own bed, than to any other cause. He might have got a car from a local garage, and motored to London, if there had been any particular urgency, but, he told himself, he might as well spend the night in Hertford as in Bond Street.
If he had any leanings towards staying at Hertford it was because he was anxious to examine the contents of the wallet at his leisure. If he had any call to town it might be discovered in his anxiety as to what had happened to Odette Rider; whether she had returned to her hotel or was still marked "missing" by the police. He could, at any rate, get into communication with Scotland Yard and satisfy his mind on that point. He turned back from the station in search of lodgings. He was to find that it was not so easy to get rooms as he had imagined. The best hotel in the place was crowded out as a result of an agricultural convention which was being held in the town. He was sent on to another hotel, only to find that the same state of congestion existed, and finally after half an hour's search he found accommodation at a small commercial hotel which was surprisingly empty.
His first step was to get into communication with London and this was established without delay. Nothing had been heard of Odette Rider, and the only news of importance was that the ex-convict, Sam Stay, had escaped from the county lunatic asylum to which he had been removed.
Tarling went up to the commodious sitting-room. He was mildly interested in the news about Stay, for the man had been a disappointment. This criminal, whose love for Thornton Lyne had, as Tarling suspected rightly, been responsible for his mental collapse, might have supplied a great deal of information as to the events which led up to the day of the murder, and his dramatic breakdown had removed a witness who might have offered material assistance to the police.
Tarling closed the door of his sitting-room behind him, pulled the wallet from his pocket and laid it on the table. He tried first with his own keys to unfasten the flap but the locks defied him. The heaviness of the wallet surprised and piqued him, but he was soon to find an explanation for its extraordinary weight. He opened his pocket-knife and began to cut away the leather about the locks, and uttered an exclamation.
So that was the reason for the heaviness of the pouch—it was only leather-covered! Beneath this cover was a lining of fine steel mail. The wallet was really a steel chain bag, the locks being welded to the chain and absolutely immovable. He threw the wallet back on the table with a laugh. He must restrain his curiosity until he got back to the Yard, where the experts would make short work of the best locks which were ever invented. Whilst he sat watching the thing upon the table and turning over in his mind the possibility of its contents, he heard footsteps pass his door and mount the stairway opposite which his sitting-room was situated. Visitors in the same plight as himself, he thought.
Somehow, being in a strange room amidst unfamiliar surroundings, gave the case a new aspect. It was an aspect of unreality. They were all so unreal, the characters in this strange drama.
Thornton Lyne seemed fantastic, and fantastic indeed was his end. Milburgh, with his perpetual smirk, his little stoop, his broad, fat face and half-bald head; Mrs. Rider, a pale ghost of a woman who flitted in and out of the story, or rather hovered about it, never seeming to intrude, yet never wholly separated from its tragic process; Ling Chu, imperturbable, bringing with him the atmosphere of that land of intrigue and mystery and motive, China. Odette Rider alone was real. She was life; warm, palpitating, wonderful.
Tarling frowned and rose stiffly from his chair. He despised himself a little for this weakness of his. Odette Rider! A woman still under suspicion of murder, a woman whom it was his duty, if she were guilty, to bring to the scaffold, and the thought of her turned him hot and cold!
He passed through to his bedroom which adjoined the sitting-room, put the wallet on a table by the side of his bed, locked the bedroom door, opened the windows and prepared himself, as best he could, for the night.
There was a train leaving Hertford at five in the morning and he had arranged to be called in time to catch it. He took off his boots, coat, vest, collar and tie, unbuckled his belt—he was one of those eccentrics to whom the braces of civilisation were anathema—and lay down on the outside of the bed, pulling the eiderdown over him. Sleep did not come to him readily. He turned from side to side, thinking, thinking, thinking.
Suppose there had been some mistake in the time of the accident at Ashford? Suppose the doctors were wrong and Thornton Lyne was murdered at an earlier hour? Suppose Odette Rider was in reality a cold-blooded——. He growled away the thought.
He heard the church clock strike the hour of two and waited impatiently for the quarter to chime—he had heard every quarter since he had retired to bed. But he did not hear that quarter. He must have fallen into an uneasy sleep for he began to dream. He dreamt he was in China again and had fallen into the hands of that baneful society, the "Cheerful Hearts." He was in a temple, lying on a great black slab of stone, bound hand and foot, and above him he saw the leader of the gang, knife in hand, peering down into his face with a malicious grin—and it was the face of Odette Rider! He saw the knife raised and woke sweating.
The church clock was booming three and a deep silence lay on the world. But there was somebody in his room. He knew that and lay motionless, peering out of half-closed eyes from one corner to the other. There was nobody to be seen, nothing to be heard, but his sixth sense told him that somebody was present. He reached out his hand carefully and silently to the table and searched for the wallet. It was gone!
Then he heard the creak of a board and it came from the direction of the door leading to the sitting-room. With one bound he was out of bed in time to see the door flung open and a figure slip through. He was after it in a second. The burglar might have escaped, but unexpectedly there was a crash and a cry. He had fallen over a chair and before he could rise Tarling was on him and had flung him back. He leapt to the door, it was open. He banged it close and turned the key.
"Now, let's have a look at you," said Tarling grimly and switched on the light.
He fell back against the door, his mouth open in amazement, for the intruder was Odette Rider, and in her hand she held the stolen wallet.
He could only gaze in stupified silence.
"You!" he said wonderingly.
The girl was pale and her eyes never left his face.
She nodded.
"Yes, it is I," she said in a low voice.
"You!" he said again and walked towards her.
He held out his hand and she gave him the wallet without a word.
"Sit down," he said kindly.
He thought she was going to faint.
"I hope I didn't hurt you? I hadn't the slightest idea——"
She shook her head.
"Oh, I'm not hurt," she said wearily, "not hurt in the way you mean."
She drew a chair to the table and dropped her face upon her hands and he stood by, embarrassed, almost terrified, by this unexpected development.
"So you were the visitor on the bicycle," he said at last. "I didn't suspect——"
It struck him at that moment that it was not an offence for Odette Rider to go up to her mother's house on a bicycle, or even to take away a wallet which was probably hers. If there was any crime at all, he had committed it in retaining something to which he had no right. She looked up at his words.
"I? On the bicycle?" she asked. "No, it was not I."
"Not you?"
She shook her head.
"I was in the grounds—I saw you using your lamp and I was quite close to you when you picked up the wallet," she said listlessly, "but I was not on the bicycle."
"Who was it?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"May I have that please?"
She held out her hand and he hesitated.
After all, he had no right or title to this curious purse. He compromised by putting it on the table and she did not attempt to take it.
"Odette," he said gently and walked round to her, laying his hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?" she asked, without looking up.
"Tell me all there is to be told," he said. "I could help you. I want to help you."
She looked up at him.
"Why do you want to help me?" she asked simply.
He was tongue-tied for a second.
"Because I love you," he said, and his voice shook.
It did not seem to him that he was talking. The words came of their own volition. He had no more intention of telling her he loved her, indeed he had no more idea that he did love her, than Whiteside would have had. Yet he knew he spoke the truth and that a power greater than he had framed the words and put them on his lips.
The effect on the girl seemed extraordinary to him. She did not shrink back, she did not look surprised. She showed no astonishment whatever. She just brought her eyes back to the table and said: "Oh!"
That calm, almost uncannily calm acceptance of a fact which Tarling had not dared to breathe to himself, was the second shock of the evening.
It was as though she had known it all along. He was on his knees by her side and his arm was about her shoulders, even before his brain had willed the act.
"My girl, my girl," he said gently. "Won't you please tell me?"
Her head was still bent and her voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.
"Tell you what?" she asked.
"What you know of this business," he said. "Don't you realise how every new development brings you more and more under suspicion?"
"What business do you mean?"
He hesitated.
"The murder of Thornton Lyne? I know nothing of that."
She made no response to that tender arm of his, but sat rigid. Something in her attitude chilled him and he dropped her hand and rose. When she looked up she saw that his face was white and set. He walked to the door and unlocked it.
"I'm not going to ask you any more," he said quietly. "You know best why you came to me to-night—I suppose you followed me and took a room. I heard somebody going upstairs soon after I arrived."
She nodded.
"Do you want—this?" she asked and pointed to the wallet on the table.
"Take it away with you."
She got up to her feet unsteadily and swayed toward him. In a second he was by her side, his arms about her. She made no resistance, but rather he felt a yielding towards him which he had missed before. Her pale face was upturned to his and he stooped and kissed her.
"Odette! Odette!" he whispered. "Don't you realise that I love you and would give my life to save you from unhappiness? Won't you tell me everything, please?"
"No, no, no," she murmured with a little catch in her voice. "Please don't ask me! I am afraid. Oh, I am afraid!"
He crushed her in his arms, his cheek against hers, his lips tingling with the caress of her hair.
"But there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing," he said eagerly. "If you were as guilty as hell, I would save you! If you are shielding somebody I would shield them because I love you, Odette!"
"No, no!" she cried and pushed him back, both her little hands pressing against his chest. "Don't ask me, don't ask me——"
"Ask me!"
Tarling swung round. There was a man standing in the doorway, in the act of closing the door behind him.
"Milburgh!" he said between his teeth.
"Milburgh!" smiled the other mockingly. "I am sorry to interrupt this beautiful scene, but the occasion is a desperate one and I cannot afford to stand on ceremony, Mr. Tarling."
Tarling put the girl from him and looked at the smirking manager. One comprehensive glance the detective gave him, noted the cycling clips and the splashes of mud on his trousers, and understood.
"So you were the cyclist, eh?" he said.
"That's right," said Milburgh, "it is an exercise to which I am very partial."
"What do you want?" asked Tarling, alert and watchful.
"I want you to carry out your promise, Mr. Tarling," said Milburgh smoothly.
Tarling stared at him.
"My promise," he said, "what promise?"
"To protect, not only the evil-doer, but those who have compromised themselves in an effort to shield the evil-doer from his or her own wicked act."
Tarling started.
"Do you mean to say——" he said hoarsely. "Do you mean to accuse——?"
"I accuse nobody," said Milburgh with a wide sweep of his hands. "I merely suggest that both Miss Rider and myself are in very serious trouble and that you have it in your power to get us safely out of this country to one where extradition laws cannot follow."
Tarling took one step towards him and Milburgh shrank back.
"Do you accuse Miss Rider of complicity in this murder?" he demanded.
Milburgh smiled, but it was an uneasy smile.
"I make no accusation," he said, "and as to the murder?" he shrugged his shoulders. "You will understand better when you read the contents of that wallet which I was endeavouring to remove to a place of safety."
Tarling picked up the wallet from the table and looked at it.
"I shall see the contents of this wallet to-morrow," he said. "Locks will present very little difficulty—"
"You can read the contents to-night," said Milburgh smoothly, and pulled from his pocket a chain, at the end of which dangled a small bunch of keys. "Here is the key," he said. "Unlock and read to-night."
Tarling took the key in his hand, inserted it in first one tiny lock and then in the other. The catches snapped open and he threw back the flap. Then a hand snatched the portfolio from him and he turned to see the girl's quivering face and read the terror in her eyes.
"No, no!" she cried, almost beside herself, "no, for God's sake, no!"
Tarling stepped back. He saw the malicious little smile on Milburgh's face and could have struck him down.
"Miss Rider does not wish me to see what is in this case," he said.
"And for an excellent reason," sneered Milburgh.
"Here!"
It was the girl's voice, surprisingly clear and steady. Her shaking hands held the paper she had taken from the wallet and she thrust it toward the detective.
"There is a reason," she said in a low voice. "But it is not the reason you suggest."
Milburgh had gone too far. Tarling saw his face lengthen and the look of apprehension in his cold blue eyes. Then, without further hesitation, he opened the paper and read.
The first line took away his breath.
"THE CONFESSION OF ODETTE RIDER."
"Good God!" he muttered and read on. There were only half a dozen lines and they were in the firm caligraphy of the girl.
"I, Odette Rider, hereby confess that for three years I have been robbing the firm of Lyne's Stores, Limited, and during that period have taken the sum of £25,000."
"I, Odette Rider, hereby confess that for three years I have been robbing the firm of Lyne's Stores, Limited, and during that period have taken the sum of £25,000."
Tarling dropped the paper and caught the girl as she fainted.
Milburgh had gone too far. He had hoped to carry through this scene without the actual disclosure of the confession. In his shrewd, clever way he had realised before Tarling himself, that the detective from Shanghai, this heir to the Lyne millions, had fallen under the spell of the girl's beauty, and all his conjectures had been confirmed by the scene he had witnessed, no less than by the conversation he had overheard before the door was opened.
He was seeking immunity and safety. The man was in a panic, though this Tarling did not realise, and was making his last desperate throw for the life that he loved, that life of ease and comfort to secure which he had risked so much.
Milburgh had lived in terror that Odette Rider would betray him, and because of his panicky fear that she had told all to the detective that night he brought her back to London from Ashford, he had dared attempt to silence the man whom he believed was the recipient of the girl's confidence.
Those shots in the foggy night which had nearly ended the career of Jack Tarling had their explanation in Milburgh's terror of exposure. One person in the world, one living person, could place him in the felon's dock, and if she betrayed him——
Tarling had carried the girl to a couch and had laid her down. He went quickly into his bedroom, switching on the light, to get a glass of water. It was Milburgh's opportunity. A little fire was burning in the sitting-room. Swiftly he picked the confession from the floor and thrust it into his pocket.
On a little table stood a writing cabinet. From this he took a sheet of the hotel paper, crumpled it up and thrust it into the fire. It was blazing when Tarling returned.
"What are you doing?" he asked, halting by the side of the couch.
"I am burning the young lady's confession," said Milburgh calmly. "I do not think it is desirable in the interests——"
"Wait," said Tarling calmly.
He lowered the girl's head and sprinkled some of the water on her face, and she opened her eyes with a little shudder.
Tarling left her for a second and walked to the fire. The paper was burnt save a scrap of the edge that had not caught, and this he lifted gingerly, looked at it for a moment, then cast his eyes round the room. He saw that the stationery cabinet had been disturbed and laughed. It was neither a pleasant nor an amused laugh.
"That's the idea, eh?" he said, walked to the door, closed it and stood with his back to it.
"Now, Milburgh, you can give me that confession you've got in your pocket."
"I've burnt it, Mr. Tarling."
"You're a liar," said Tarling calmly. "You knew very well I wouldn't let you go out of this room with that confession in your pocket and you tried to bluff me by burning a sheet of writing-paper. I want that confession."
"I assure you——" began Milburgh.
"I want that confession," said Tarling, and with a sickly smile. Milburgh put his hand in his pocket and drew out the crumpled sheet.
"Now, if you are anxious to see it burn," said Tarling, "you will have an opportunity."
He read the statement again and put it into the fire, watched it until it was reduced to ashes, then beat the ashes down with a poker.
"That's that," said Tarling cheerfully.
"I suppose you know what you've done," said Milburgh. "You've destroyed evidence which you, as an officer of the law——"
"Cut that out," replied Tarling shortly.
For the second time that night he unlocked the door and flung it wide open.
"Milburgh, you can go. I know where I can find you when I want you," he said.
"You'll be sorry for this," said Milburgh.
"Not half as sorry as you'll be by the time I'm through with you," retorted Tarling.
"I shall go straight to Scotland Yard," fumed the man, white with passion.
"Do, by all means," said the detective coolly, "and be good enough to ask them to detain you until I come."
With this shot he closed the door upon the retreating man.
The girl was sitting now on the edge of the sofa, her brave eyes surveying the man who loved her.
"What have you done?" she asked.
"I've destroyed that precious confession of yours," said Tarling cheerfully. "It occurred to me in the space of time it took to get from you to my wash-stand, that that confession may have been made under pressure. I am right, aren't I?"
She nodded.
"Now, you wait there a little while I make myself presentable and I'll take you home."
"Take me home?" said the startled girl. "Not to mother, no, no. She mustn't ever know."
"On the contrary, she must know. I don't know what it is she mustn't know," said Tarling with a little smile, "but there has been a great deal too much mystery already, and it is not going to continue."
She rose and walked to the fireplace, her elbows on the mantelpiece, and her head back.
"I'll tell you all I can. Perhaps you're right," she said. "There has been too much mystery. You asked me once who was Milburgh."
She turned and half-faced him.
"I won't ask you that question any more," he said quietly, "I know!"
"You know?"
"Yes, Milburgh is your mother's second husband."
Her eyes opened.
"How did you find out that?"
"I guessed that," he smiled, "and she keeps her name Rider at Milburgh's request. He asked her not to reveal the fact that she was married again. Isn't that so?"
She nodded.
"Mother met him about seven years ago. We were at Harrogate at the time. You see, mother had a little money, and I think Mr. Milburgh thought it was much more than it actually was. He was a very agreeable man and told mother that he had a big business in the city. Mother believes that he is very well off."
Tarling whistled.
"I see," he said. "Milburgh has been robbing his employers and spending the money on your mother."
She shook her head.
"That is partly true and partly untrue," she said. "Mother has been an innocent participant. He bought this house at Hertford and furnished it lavishly, he kept two cars until a year ago, when I made him give them up and live more simply. You don't know what these years have meant, Mr. Tarling, since I discovered how deeply mother would be dragged down by the exposure of his villainy."
"How did you find it out?"
"It was soon after the marriage," said the girl. "I went into Lyne's Store one day and one of the employees was rude to me. I shouldn't have taken much notice, but an officious shop-walker dismissed the girl on the spot, and when I pleaded for her reinstatement, he insisted that I should see the manager. I was ushered into a private office, and there I saw Mr. Milburgh and realised the kind of double life he was living. He made me keep his secret, painted a dreadful picture of what would happen, and said he could put everything right if I would come into the business and help him. He told me he had large investments which were bringing in big sums and that he would apply this money to making good his defalcations. That was why I went into Lyne's Store, but he broke his word from the very beginning."
"Why did he put you there?" asked Tarling.
"Because, if there had been another person," said the girl, "he might have been detected. He knew that any inquiries into irregularities of accounts would come first to my department, and he wanted to have somebody there who would let him know. He did not betray this thought," said the girl, "but I guessed that that was the idea at the back of his mind...."
She went on to tell him something of the life she had lived, the humiliation she suffered in her knowledge of the despicable part she was playing.
"From the first I was an accessory," she said. "It is true that I did not steal, but my reason for accepting the post was in order to enable him, as I thought, to right a grievous wrong and to save my mother from the shame and misery which would follow the exposure of Milburgh's real character."
She looked at him with a sad little smile.
"I hardly realise that I am speaking to a detective," she said, "and all that I have suffered during these past years has been in vain; but the truth must come now, whatever be the consequences."
She paused.
"And now I am going to tell you what happened on the night of the murder."
There was a deep silence. Tarling could feel his heart thumping almost noisily.
"After I had left Lyne's Store," she said, "I had decided to go to mother to spend two or three days with her before I began looking for work. Mr. Milburgh only went to Hertford for the weekends, and I couldn't stay in the same house with him, knowing all that I knew.
"I left my flat at about half-past six that evening, but I am not quite sure of the exact time. It must have been somewhere near then, because I was going to catch the seven o'clock train to Hertford. I arrived at the station and had taken my ticket, and was stooping to pick up my bag, when I felt a hand on my arm, and turning, saw Mr. Milburgh. He was in a state of great agitation and distress, and asked me to take a later train and accompany him to the Florentine Restaurant, where he had taken a private room. He told me he had very bad news and that I must know.
"I put my bag in the cloak-room and went off with him, and over the dinner—I only had a cup of tea, as a matter of fact—he told me that he was on the verge of ruin. He said that Mr. Lyne had sent for a detective (which was you), and had the intention of exposing him, only Mr. Lyne's rage against me was so great, that for the moment he was diverted from his purpose.
"'Only you can save me,' said Milburgh.
"'I?' I said in astonishment, 'how can I save you?'
"'Take the responsibility for the theft upon yourself,' he said. 'Your mother is involved in this heavily.'
"'Does she know?'
"He nodded. I found afterwards that he was lying to me and was preying upon my love for mother.
"I was dazed and horrified," said the girl, "at the thought that poor dear mother might be involved in this horrible scandal, and when he suggested that I should write a confession at his dictation and should leave by the first train for the Continent until the matter blew over, I fell in with his scheme without protest—and that is all."
"Why did you come to Hertford to-night?" asked Tarling.
Again she smiled.
"To get the confession," she said simply "I knew Milburgh would keep it in the safe. I saw him when I left the hotel—he had telephoned to me and made the appointment at the shop where I slipped the detectives, and it was there that he told me——" she stopped suddenly and went red.
"He told you I was fond of you," said Tarling quietly, and she nodded.
"He threatened to take advantage of that fact, and wanted to show you the confession."
"I see," said Tarling, and heaved a deep sigh of relief. "Thank God!" he said fervently.
"For what?" she asked, looking at him in astonishment.
"That everything is clear. To-morrow I will arrest the murderer of Thornton Lyne!"
"No, no, not that," she said, and laid her hand on his shoulder, her distressed face looking into his, "surely not that. Mr. Milburgh could not have done it, he could not be so great a scoundrel."
"Who sent the wire to your mother saying you were not coming down?"
"Milburgh," replied the girl.
"Did he send two wires, do you remember?" said Tarling.
She hesitated.
"Yes, he did," she said, "I don't know who the other was to."
"It was the same writing anyway," he said.
"But——"
"Dear," he said, "you must not worry any more about it. There is a trying time ahead of you, but you must be brave, both for your own sake and for your mother's, and for mine," he added.
Despite her unhappiness she smiled faintly.
"You take something for granted, don't you?" she asked.
"Am I doing that?" he said in surprise.
"You mean—" she went redder than ever—"that I care enough for you—that I would make an effort for your sake?"
"I suppose I do," said Tarling slowly, "it's vanity, I suppose?"
"Perhaps it is instinct," she said, and squeezed his arm.
"I must take you back to your mother's place," he said.
The walk from the house to the station had been a long and tedious one. The way back was surprisingly short, even though they walked at snail's pace. There never was a courting such as Tarling's, and it seemed unreal as a dream. The girl had a key of the outer gate and they passed through together.
"Does your mother know that you are in Hertford?" asked Tarling suddenly.
"Yes," replied the girl. "I saw her before I came after you."
"Does she know——"
He did not care to finish the sentence.
"No," said the girl, "she does not know. Poor woman, it will break her heart. She is—very fond of Milburgh. Sometimes he is most kind to mother. She loves him so much that she accepted his mysterious comings and goings and all the explanations which he offered, without suspicion."
They had reached the place where he had picked up the wallet, and above him gloomed the dark bulk of the portico with its glass-house atop. The house was in darkness, no lights shone anywhere.
"I will take you in through the door under the portico. It is the way Mr. Milburgh always comes. Have you a light?"
He had his electric lamp in his pocket and he put a beam upon the key-hole. She inserted the key and uttered a note of exclamation, for the door yielded under her pressure and opened.
"It is unlocked," she said. "I am sure I fastened it."
Tarling put his lamp upon the lock and made a little grimace. The catch had been wedged back into the lock so that it could not spring out again.
"How long were you in the house?" he asked quickly.
"Only a few minutes," said the girl. "I went in just to tell mother, and I came out immediately."
"Did you close the door behind you when you went in?"
The girl thought a moment.
"Perhaps I didn't," she said. "No, of course not—I didn't come back this way; mother let me out by the front door."
Tarling put his light into the hall and saw the carpeted stairs half-a-dozen feet away. He guessed what had happened. Somebody had seen the door ajar, and guessing from the fact that she had left it open that she was returning immediately, had slipped a piece of wood, which looked to be and was in fact the stalk of a match, between the catch of the spring lock and its sheath.
"What has happened?" asked the girl in a troubled voice.
"Nothing," said Tarling airily. "It was probably your disreputable step-father did this. He may have lost his key."
"He could have gone in the front door," said the girl uneasily.
"Well, I'll go first," said Tarling with a cheerfulness which he was far from feeling.
He went upstairs, his lamp in one hand, an automatic pistol in the other. The stairs ended in a balustraded landing from which two doors opened.
"That is mother's room," said the girl, pointing to the nearest.
A sense of impending trouble made her shiver. Tarling put his arms about her encouragingly. He walked to the door of the room, turned the handle and opened it. There was something behind the door which held it close, and exerting all his strength he pushed the door open sufficiently far to allow of his squeezing through.
On the desk a table-lamp was burning, the light of which was hidden from the outside by the heavily-curtained windows, but it was neither at the window nor at the desk that he was looking.
Mrs. Rider lay behind the door, a little smile on her face, the haft of a dagger standing out with hideous distinctness beneath her heart.
Tarling gave one glance before he turned to the girl, who was endeavouring to push past him, and catching her by the arm gently thrust her back into the passage.
"What is wrong? What is wrong?" she asked in a terrified whisper. "Oh, let me go to mother."
She struggled to escape from his grip, but he held her firmly.
"You must be brave, for your own sake—for everybody's sake," he entreated her.
Still holding her arm, he forced her to the door of the second inner room. His hand felt for the electric switch and found it.
He was in what appeared to be a spare bedroom, plainly furnished, and from this a door led, apparently into the main building.
"Where does that door lead?" he asked, but she did not appear to hear him.
"Mother, mother!" she was moaning, "what has happened to my mother?"
"Where does that door lead?" he asked again, and for answer she slipped her trembling hand into her pocket and produced a key.
He opened the door and found himself in a rectangular gallery overlooking the hall.
She slipped past him, but he caught her and pushed her back.
"I tell you, you must be calm, Odette," he said firmly, "you must not give way. Everything depends upon your courage. Where are the servants?"
Then, unexpectedly, she broke away from him and raced back through the door into the wing they had left. He followed in swift pursuit.
"For God's sake, Odette, don't, don't," he cried, as she flung herself against the door and burst into her mother's room.
One glance she gave, then she fell on the floor by the side of her dead mother, and flinging her arms about the form kissed the cold lips.
Tarling pulled her gently away, and half-carried, half-supported her back to the gallery. A dishevelled man in shirt and trousers whom Tarling thought might be the butler was hurrying along the corridor.
"Arouse any women who are in the house," said Tarling in a low voice. "Mrs. Rider has been murdered."
"Murdered, sir!" said the startled man. "You don't mean that?"
"Quick," said Tarling sharply, "Miss Rider has fainted again."
They carried her into the drawing-room and laid her on the couch, and Tarling did not leave her until he had seen her in the hands of two women servants.
He went back with the butler to the room where the body lay. He turned on all the lights and made a careful scrutiny of the room. The window leading on to the glass-covered balcony where he had been concealed a few hours before, was latched, locked and bolted.
The curtains, which had been drawn, presumably by Milburgh when he came for the wallet, were undisturbed. From the position in which the dead woman lay and the calm on her face he thought death must have come instantly and unexpectedly. Probably the murderer stole behind her whilst she was standing at the foot of the sofa which he had partly seen through the window. It was likely that, to beguile the time of waiting for her daughter's return, she had taken a book from a little cabinet immediately behind the door, and support for this theory came in the shape of a book which had evidently fallen out of her hand between the position in which she was found and the book-case.
Together the two men lifted the body on to the sofa.
"You had better go down into the town and inform the police," said Tarling. "Is there a telephone here?"
"Yes, sir," replied the butler.
"Good, that will save you a journey," said the detective.
He notified the local police officials and then got on to Scotland Yard and sent a messenger to arouse Whiteside. The faint pallor of dawn was in the sky when he looked out of the window, but the pale light merely served to emphasise the pitch darkness of the world.
He examined the knife, which had the appearance of being a very ordinary butcher's knife. There were some faint initials burnt upon the hilt, but these had been so worn by constant handling that there was only the faintest trace of what they had originally been. He could see an "M" and two other letters that looked like "C" and "A."
"M.C.A.?"
He puzzled his brain to interpret the initials. Presently the butler came back.
"The young lady is in a terrible state, sir, and I have sent for Dr. Thomas."
Tarling nodded.
"You have done very wisely," he said. "Poor girl, she has had a terrible shock."
Again he went to the telephone, and this time he got into connection with a nursing home in London and arranged for an ambulance to pick up the girl without further delay. When he had telephoned to Scotland Yard he had asked as an after-thought that a messenger should be sent to Ling Chu, instructing him to come without delay. He had the greatest faith in the Chinaman, particularly in a case like this where the trail was fresh, for Ling Chu was possessed of super-human gifts which only the blood-hound could rival.
"Nobody must go upstairs," he instructed the butler. "When the doctor and the coroner's officer come, they must be admitted by the principal entrance, and if I am not here, you must understand that under no circumstances are those stairs leading to the portico to be used."
He himself went out of the main entrance to make a tour of the grounds. He had little hope that that search would lead to anything. Clues there might be in plenty when the daylight revealed them, but the likelihood of the murderer remaining in the vicinity of the scene of his crime was a remote one.
The grounds were extensive and well-wooded. Numerous winding paths met, and forked aimlessly, radiating out from the broad gravel paths about the house to the high walls which encircled the little estate.
In one corner of the grounds was a fairly large patch, innocent of bush and offering no cover at all. He made a casual survey of this, sweeping his light across the ordered rows of growing vegetables, and was going away when he saw a black bulk which had the appearance, even in the darkness, of a gardener's house. He swept this possible cover with his lamp.
Was his imagination playing him a trick, or had he caught the briefest glimpse of a white face peering round the corner? He put on his light again. There was nothing visible. He walked to the building and round it. There was nobody in sight. He thought he saw a dark form under the shadow of the building moving towards the belt of pines which surrounded the house on the three sides. He put on his lamp again, but the light was not powerful enough to carry the distance required, and he went forward at a jog trot in the direction he had seen the figure disappear. He reached the pines and went softly. Every now and again he stopped, and once he could have sworn he heard the cracking of a twig ahead of him.
He started off at a run in pursuit, and now there was no mistaking the fact that somebody was still in the wood. He heard the quick steps of his quarry and then there was silence. He ran on, but must have overshot the mark, for presently he heard a stealthy noise behind him. In a flash he turned back.
"Who are you?" he said. "Stand out or I'll fire!"
There was no answer and he waited. He heard the scraping of a boot against the brick-work and he knew that the intruder was climbing the wall. He turned in the direction of the sound, but again found nothing.
Then from somewhere above him came such a trill of demoniacal laughter as chilled his blood. The top of the wall was concealed by the overhanging branch of a tree and his light was valueless.
"Come down," he shouted, "I've got you covered!"
Again came that terrible laugh, half-fear, half-derision, and a voice shrill and harsh came down to him.
"Murderer! Murderer! You killed Thornton Lyne, damn you! I've kept this for you—take it!"
Something came crashing through the trees, something small and round, a splashing drop, as of water, fell on the back of Tarling's hand and he shook it off with a cry, for it burnt like fire. He heard the mysterious stranger drop from the coping of the wall and the sound of his swift feet. He stooped and picked up the article which had been thrown at him. It was a small bottle bearing a stained chemist's label and the word "Vitriol."
It was ten o'clock in the morning, and Whiteside and Tarling were sitting on a sofa in their shirt-sleeves, sipping their coffee. Tarling was haggard and weary, in contrast to the dapper inspector of police. Though the latter had been aroused from his bed in the early hours of the morning, he at least had enjoyed a good night's sleep.
They sat in the room in which Mrs. Rider had been murdered, and the rusty brown stains on the floor where Tarling had found her were eloquent of the tragedy.
They sat sipping their coffee, neither man talking, and they maintained this silence for several minutes, each man following his own train of thought. Tarling for reasons of his own had not revealed his own adventure and he had told the other nothing of the mysterious individual (who he was, he pretty well guessed) whom he had chased through the grounds.
Presently Whiteside lit a cigarette and threw the match in the grate, and Tarling roused himself from his reverie with a jerk.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
Whiteside shook his head.
"If there had been property taken, it would have had a simple explanation. But nothing has gone. Poor girl!"
Tarling nodded.
"Terrible!" he said. "The doctor had to drug her before he could get her to go."
"Where is she?" asked Whiteside
"I sent her on an ambulance to a nursing-home in London," said Tarling shortly. "This is awful, Whiteside."
"It's pretty bad," said the detective-inspector, scratching his chin. "The young lady could supply no information?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing. She had gone up to see her mother and had left the door ajar, intending to return by the same way after she had interviewed Mrs. Rider. As a matter of fact, she was let out by the front door. Somebody was watching and apparently thought that she was coming out by the way she went in, waited for a time, and then as she did not reappear, followed her into the building."
"And that somebody was Milburgh?" said Whiteside.
Tarling made no reply. He had his own views and for the moment was not prepared to argue.
"It was obviously Milburgh," said Whiteside. "He comes to you in the night—we know that he is in Hertford. We know, too, that he tried to assassinate you because he thought the girl had betrayed him and you had unearthed his secret. He must have killed his wife, who probably knows much more about the murder than the daughter."
Tarling looked at his watch.
"Ling Chu should be here by now," he said.
"Oh, you sent for Ling Chu, did you?" said Whiteside in surprise. "I thought that you'd given up that idea."
"I 'phoned again a couple of hours ago," said Tarling.
"H'm!" said Whiteside. "Do you think that he knows anything about this?"
Tarling shook his head.
"I believe the story he told me. Of course, when I made the report to Scotland Yard I did not expect that you people would be as credulous as I am, but I know the man. He has never lied to me."
"Murder is a pretty serious business," said Whiteside. "If a man didn't lie to save his neck, he wouldn't lie at all."
There was the sound of a motor below, and Tarling walked to the window.
"Here is Ling Chu," he said, and a few minutes later the Chinaman came noiselessly into the room.
Tarling greeted him with a curt nod, and without any preliminary told the story of the crime. He spoke in English—he had not employed Chinese since he discovered that Ling Chu understood English quite as well as he understood Cantonese, and Whiteside was able from time to time to interject a word, or correct some little slip on Tarling's part. The Chinaman listened without comment and when Tarling had finished he made one of his queer jerky bows and went out of the room.
"Here are the letters," said Whiteside, after the man had gone.
Two neat piles of letters were arranged on Mrs. Rider's desk, and Tarling drew up a chair.
"This is the lot?" he said.
"Yes," said Whiteside. "I've been searching the house since eight o'clock and I can find no others. Those on the right are all from Milburgh. You'll find they're simply signed with an initial—a characteristic of his—but they bear his town address."
"You've looked through them?" asked Tarling
"Read 'em all," replied the other. "There's nothing at all incriminating in any of them. They're what I would call bread and butter letters, dealing with little investments which Milburgh has made in his wife's name—or rather, in the name of Mrs. Rider. It's easy to see from these how deeply the poor woman was involved without her knowing that she was mixing herself up in a great conspiracy."
Tarling assented. One by one he took the letters from their envelopes, read them and replaced them. He was half-way through the pile when he stopped and carried a letter to the window.
"Listen to this," he said: