The Daffodil Mystery by Edgar Wallace (best ereader for comics .txt) 📗

their characteristics. It is said that the Chinaman does not fear death or pain, which is a slight exaggeration, because I have known criminals who feared both."

His thin lips curved for a second in the ghost of a smile, as though at some amusing recollection. Then he grew serious again.

"From the Western standpoint we are a primitive people. From our own point of view we are rigidly honourable. Also—and this I would emphasise." He did, in fact, emphasise his words to the terror of Mr. Milburgh, with the point of his knife upon the other's broad chest, though so lightly was the knife held that Milburgh felt nothing but the slightest tingle.

"We do not set the same value upon the rights of the individual as do you people in the West. For example," he explained carefully, "we are not tender with our prisoners, if we think that by applying a little pressure to them we can assist the process of justice."

"What do you mean?" asked Milburgh, a grisly thought dawning upon his mind.

"In Britain—and in America too, I understand—though the Americans are much more enlightened on this subject—when you arrest a member of a gang you are content with cross-examining him and giving him full scope for the exercise of his inventive power. You ask him questions and go on asking and asking, and you do not know whether he is lying or telling the truth."

Mr. Milburgh began to breathe heavily.

"Has that idea sunk into your mind?" asked Ling Chu.

"I don't know what you mean," said Mr. Milburgh in a quavering voice. "All I know is that you are committing a most——"

Ling Chu stopped him with a gesture.

"I am perfectly well aware of what I am doing," he said. "Now listen to me. A week or so ago, Mr. Thornton Lyne, your employer, was found dead in Hyde Park. He was dressed in his shirt and trousers, and about his body, in an endeavour to stanch the wound, somebody had wrapped a silk night-dress. He was killed in the flat of a small lady, whose name I cannot pronounce, but you will know her."

Milburgh's eyes never left the Chinaman's, and he nodded.

"He was killed by you," said Ling Chu slowly, "because he had discovered that you had been robbing him, and you were in fear that he would hand you over to the police."

"That's a lie," roared Milburgh. "It's a lie—I tell you it's a lie!"

"I shall discover whether it is a lie in a few moments," said Ling Chu.

He put his hand inside his blouse and Milburgh watched him fascinated, but he produced nothing more deadly than a silver cigarette-case, which he opened. He selected a cigarette and lit it, and for a few minutes puffed in silence, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon Milburgh. Then he rose and went to the cupboard and took out a larger bottle and placed it beside the other.

Ling Chu pulled again at his cigarette and then threw it into the grate.

"It is in the interests of all parties," he said in his slow, halting way, "that the truth should be known, both for the sake of my honourable master, Lieh Jen, the Hunter, and his honourable Little Lady."

He took up his knife and bent over the terror-stricken man.

"For God's sake don't, don't," half screamed, half sobbed Milburgh.

"This will not hurt you," said Ling Chu, and drew four straight lines across the other's breast. The keen razor edge seemed scarcely to touch the flesh, yet where the knife had passed was a thin red mark like a scratch.

Milburgh scarcely felt a twinge of pain, only a mild irritating smarting and no more. The Chinaman laid down the knife and took up the smaller bottle.

"In this," he said, "is a vegetable extract. It is what you would call capsicum, but it is not quite like your pepper because it is distilled from a native root. In this bottle," he picked up the larger, "is a Chinese oil which immediately relieves the pain which capsicum causes."

"What are you going to do?" asked Milburgh, struggling. "You dog! You fiend!"

"With a little brush I will paint capsicum on these places." He touched Milburgh's chest with his long white ringers. "Little by little, millimetre by millimetre my brush will move, and you will experience such pain as you have never experienced before. It is pain which will rack you from head to foot, and will remain with you all your life in memory. Sometimes," he said philosophically, "it drives me mad, but I do not think it will drive you mad."

He took out the cork and dipped a little camel-hair brush in the mixture, withdrawing it moist with fluid. He was watching Milburgh all the time, and when the stout man opened his mouth to yell he thrust a silk handkerchief, which he drew with lightning speed from his pocket, into the open mouth.

"Wait, wait!" gasped the muffled voice of Milburgh. "I have something to tell you—something that your master should know."

"That is very good," said Ling Chu coolly, and pulled out the handkerchief. "You shall tell me the truth."

"What truth can I tell you?" asked the man, sweating with fear. Great beads of sweat were lying on his face.

"You shall confess the truth that you killed Thornton Lyne," said Ling Chu. "That is the only truth I want to hear."

"I swear I did not kill him! I swear it, I swear it!" raved the prisoner. "Wait, wait!" he whimpered as the other picked up the handkerchief. "Do you know what has happened to Miss Rider?"

The Chinaman checked his movement.

"To Miss Rider?" he said quickly. (He pronounced the word "Lider.")

Brokenly, gaspingly, breathlessly, Milburgh told the story of his meeting with Sam Stay. In his distress and mental anguish he reproduced faithfully not only every word, but every intonation, and the Chinaman listened with half-closed eyes. Then, when Milburgh had finished, he put down his bottle and thrust in the cork.

"My master would wish that the little woman should escape danger," he said. "To-night he does not return, so I must go myself to the hospital—you can wait."

"Let me go," said Milburgh. "I will help you."

Ling Chu shook his head.

"You can wait," he said with a sinister smile. "I will go first to the hospital and afterwards, if all is well, I will return for you."

He took a clean white towel from the dressing-table and laid it over his victim's face. Upon the towel he sprinkled the contents of a third bottle which he took from the cupboard, and Milburgh remembered no more until he looked up into the puzzled face of Tarling an hour later.

CHAPTER XXXIV THE ARREST

Tarling stooped down and released the cords which bound Milburgh to the couch. The stout man was white and shaking, and had to be lifted into a sitting position. He sat there on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, for five minutes, and the two men watched him curiously. Tarling had made a careful examination of the cuts on his chest, and was relieved to discover that Ling Chu—he did not doubt that the Chinaman was responsible for Milburgh's plight—had not yet employed that terrible torture which had so often brought Chinese criminals to the verge of madness.

Whiteside picked up the clothes which Ling Chu had so systematically stripped from the man's body, and placed them on the bed by Milburgh's side. Then Tarling beckoned the other into the outer room.

"What does it all mean?" asked Whiteside.

"It means," said Tarling grimly, "that my friend, Ling Chu, has been trying to discover the murderer of Thornton Lyne by methods peculiarly Chinese. Happily he was interrupted, probably as a result of Milburgh telling him that Miss Odette Rider had been spirited away."

He looked back to the drooping figure by the side of the bed.

"He's a little bigger than I," he said, "but I think some of my clothes will fit him."

He made a hasty search of his wardrobe and came back with an armful of clothes.

"Come, Milburgh," he said, "rouse yourself and dress."

The man looked up, his lower lip trembling pathetically.

"I rather think these clothes, though they may be a bad fit, will suit you a little better than your clerical garb," said Tarling sardonically.

Without a word, Milburgh took the clothes in his arms, and they left him to dress. They heard his heavy footfall, and presently the door opened and he came weakly into the sitting-room and dropped into a chair.

"Do you feel well enough to go out now?" asked Whiteside.

"Go out?" said Milburgh, looking up in alarm. "Where am I to go?"

"To Cannon Row Police Station," said the practical Whiteside. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Milburgh, on a charge of wilful murder, arson, forgery, and embezzlement."

"Wilful murder!" Milburgh's voice was high and squeaky and his shaking hands went to his mouth. "You cannot charge me with wilful murder. No, no, no! I swear to you I am innocent!"

"Where did you see Thornton Lyne last?" asked Tarling, and the man made a great effort to compose himself.

"I saw him last alive in his office," he began.

"When did you see Thornton Lyne last?" asked Tarling again. "Alive or dead."

Milburgh did not reply. Presently Whiteside dropped his hand on the man's shoulder and looked across at Tarling.

"Come along," he said briskly. "It is my duty as a police officer to warn you that anything you now say will be taken down and used as evidence against you at your trial."

"Wait, wait!" said Milburgh. His voice was husky and thick. He looked round. "Can I have a glass of water?" he begged, licking his dry lips.

Tarling brought the refreshment, which the man drank eagerly. The water seemed to revive something of his old arrogant spirit, for he got up from his chair, jerked at the collar of his ill-fitting coat—it was an old shooting-coat of Tarling's—and smiled for the first time.

"I think, gentlemen," he said with something of his old airiness, "you will have a difficulty in proving that I am concerned in the murder of Thornton Lyne. You will have as great a difficulty in proving that I had anything to do with the burning down of Solomon's office—I presume that constitutes the arson charge? And most difficult of all will be your attempt to prove that I was concerned in robbing the firm of Thornton Lyne. The lady who robbed that firm has already made a confession, as you, Mr. Tarling, are well aware." He smiled at the other, but Tarling met his eye.

"I know of no confession," he said steadily.

Mr. Milburgh inclined his head with a smirk. Though he still bore the physical evidence of the bad time through which he had been, he had recovered something of his old confidence.

"The confession was burnt," he said, "and burnt by you, Mr. Tarling. And now I think your bluff has gone on long enough."

"My bluff!" said Tarling, in his turn astonished. "What do you mean by bluff?"

"I am referring to the warrant which you suggest has been issued for my arrest," said Milburgh.

"That's no bluff." It was Whiteside who spoke, and he produced from his pocket a folded sheet of paper, which he opened and displayed under the eyes of the man. "And in case of accidents," said Whiteside, and deftly slipped a pair of handcuffs upon the man's wrists.

It may have been Milburgh's overweening faith in his own genius. It may have been, and probably was, a consciousness that he had covered his trail too well to be detected. One or other of these causes had kept him up, but now he collapsed. To Tarling it was amazing that the man had maintained this show of bravado to the last, though in his heart he knew that the Crown had a very poor case against Milburgh if the charge of embezzlement and arson were proceeded with. It was on the murder alone that a conviction could be secured; and this Milburgh evidently realised, for he made no attempt in the remarkable statement which followed to do more than hint that he had been guilty of robbing the firm. He sat huddled up in his chair, his manacled hands clasped on the table before him, and then with a jerk sat upright.

"If you'll take off these things, gentlemen," he said, jangling the connecting chain of the handcuffs, "I will tell you something which may set your mind at rest on the question of Thornton Lyne's death."

Whiteside looked at his superior questioningly, and Tarling nodded. A few seconds later the handcuffs had been removed, and Mr. Milburgh was soothing his chafed wrists.

The psychologist who attempted to analyse the condition of mind in which Tarling found himself would be faced with a difficult task. He had