The Daffodil Mystery - Edgar Wallace (best books to read for women TXT) 📗

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."


CHAPTER XV

THE OWNER OF THE PISTOL


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!"


CHAPTER XVI

THE HEIR


"_Your_ pistol?" 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