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

diaries from the beginning he had eventually put aside the last volume after an unsuccessful effort to break the fastening.

"Is there nothing else?" asked Tarling.

"Nothing," said the disappointed inspector, looking into the interior. "There may be other little cupboards of this kind," he added. But a long search revealed no further hiding-place.

"Nothing more is to be done here," said Tarling. "Keep one of your men in the house in case Milburgh turns up. Personally I doubt very much whether he will put in an appearance."

"Do you think the girl has frightened him?"

"I think it is extremely likely," said Tarling. "I will make an inquiry at the Stores, but I don't suppose he will be there either."

This surmise proved to be correct. Nobody at Lyne's Store had seen the manager or received word as to his whereabouts. Milburgh had disappeared as though the ground had opened and swallowed him.

No time was lost by Scotland Yard in communicating particulars of the wanted man to every police station in England. Within twenty-four hours his description and photograph were in the hands of every chief constable; and if he had not succeeded in leaving the country--which was unlikely--during the time between the issue of the warrant and his leaving Tarling's room in Hertford, his arrest was inevitable.

At five o'clock that afternoon came a new clue. A pair of ladies' shoes, mud-stained and worn, had been discovered in a ditch on the Hertford road, four miles from the house where the latest murder had been committed. This news came by telephone from the Chief of the Hertford Constabulary, with the further information that the shoes had been despatched to Scotland Yard by special messenger.

It was half-past seven when the little parcel was deposited on Tarling's table. He stripped the package of its paper, opened the lid of the cardboard box, and took out a distorted-looking slipper which had seen better days.

"A woman's, undoubtedly," he said. "Do you note the crescent-shaped heel."

"Look!" said Whiteside, pointing to some stains on the whitey-brown inner sock. "That supports Ling Chu's theory. The feet of the person who wore these were bleeding."

Tailing examined the slippers and nodded. He turned up the tongue in search of the maker's name, and the shoe dropped from his hand.

"What's on earth the matter?" asked Whiteside, and picked it up.

He looked and laughed helplessly; for on the inside of the tongue was a tiny label bearing the name of a London shoemaker, and beneath, written in ink, "Miss O. Rider."


CHAPTER XXX

WHO KILLED MRS. RIDER?


The matron of the nursing home received Tarling. Odette, she said, had regained her normal calm, but would require a few days' rest. She suggested she should be sent to the country.

"I hope you're not going to ask her a lot of questions, Mr. Tarling," said the matron, "because she really isn't fit to stand any further strain."

"There's only one question I'm going to ask," said Tarling grimly.

He found the girl in a prettily-furnished room, and she held out her hand to him in greeting. He stooped and kissed her, and without further ado produced the shoe from his pocket.

"Odette dear," he said gently, "is this yours?"

She looked at it and nodded.

"Why yes, where did you find it?"

"Are you sure it is yours?"

"I'm perfectly certain it's mine," she smiled. "It's an old slipper I used to wear. Why do you ask?"

"Where did you see it last?"

The girl closed her eyes and shivered.

"In mother's room," she said. "Oh, mother, mother!"

She turned her head to the cushion of the chair and wept, and Tarling soothed her.

It was some time before she was calm, but then she could give no further information.

"It was a shoe that mother liked because it fitted her. We both took the same size...."

Her voice broke again and Tarling hastened to change the conversation.

More and more he was becoming converted to Ling Chu's theory. He could not apply to that theory the facts which had come into his possession. On his way back from the nursing home to police headquarters, he reviewed the Hertford crime.

Somebody had come into the house bare-footed, with bleeding feet, and, having committed the murder, had looked about for shoes. The old slippers had been the only kind which the murderer could wear, and he or she had put them on and had gone out again, after making the circuit of the house. Why had this mysterious person tried to get into the house again, and for whom or what were they searching?

If Ling Chu was correct, obviously the murderer could not be Milburgh. If he could believe the evidence of his senses, the man with the small feet had been he who had shrieked defiance in the darkness and had hurled the vitriol at his feet. He put his views before his subordinate and found Whiteside willing to agree with him.

"But it does not follow," said Whiteside, "that the bare-footed person who was apparently in Mrs. Rider's house committed the murder. Milburgh did that right enough, don't worry! There is less doubt that he committed the Daffodil Murder."

Tarling swung round in his chair; he was sitting on the opposite side of the big table that the two men used in common.

"I think I know who committed the Daffodil Murder," he said steadily. "I have been working things out, and I have a theory which you would probably describe as fantastic."

"What is it?" asked Whiteside, but the other shook his head.

He was not for the moment prepared to reveal his theory.

Whiteside leaned back in his chair and for a moment cogitated.

"The case from the very beginning is full of contradictions," he said. "Thornton Lyne was a rich man--by-the-way, you're a rich man, now, Tarling, and I must treat you with respect."

Tarling smiled.

"Go on," he said.

"He had queer tastes--a bad poet, as is evidenced by his one slim volume of verse. He was a poseur, proof of which is to be found in his patronage of Sam Stay--who, by the way, has escaped from the lunatic asylum; I suppose you know that?"

"I know that," said Tarling. "Go on."

"Lyne falls in love with a pretty girl in his employ," continued Whiteside. "Used to having his way when he lifted his finger, all women that in earth do dwell must bow their necks to the yoke. He is repulsed by the girl and in his humiliation immediately conceives for her a hatred beyond the understanding of any sane mortal."

"So far your account doesn't challenge contradiction," said Tarling with a little twinkle in his eye.

"That is item number one," continued Whiteside, ticking the item off on his fingers. "Item number two is Mr. Milburgh, an oleaginous gentleman who has been robbing the firm for years and has been living in style in the country on his ill-earned gains. From what he hears, or knows, he gathers, that the jig is up. He is in despair when he realises that Thornton Lyne is desperately in love with his step-daughter. What is more likely than that he should use his step-daughter in order to influence Thornton Lyne to take the favourable view of his delinquencies?"

"Or what is more likely," interrupted Tarling, "than that he would put the blame for the robberies upon the girl and trust to her paying a price to Thornton Lyne to escape punishment?"

"Right again. I'll accept that possibility," said Whiteside. "Milburgh's plan is to get a private interview, under exceptionally favourable circumstances, with Thornton Lyne. He wires to that gentleman to meet him at Miss Rider's flat, relying upon the magic of the name."

"And Thornton Lyne comes in list slippers," said Tarling sarcastically. "That doesn't wash, Whiteside."

"No, it doesn't," admitted the other. "But I'm getting at the broad aspects of the case. Lyne comes. He is met by Milburgh, who plays his trump card of confession and endeavours to switch the young man on to the solution which Milburgh had prepared. Lyne refuses, there is a row, and is desperation Milburgh shoots Thornton Lyne."

Tarling shook his head. He mused a while, then:

"It's queer," he said.

The door opened and a police officer came in.

"Here are the particulars you want," he said and handed Whiteside a typewritten sheet of paper.

"What is this?" said Whiteside when the man had gone. "Oh, here is our old friend, Sam Stay. A police description." He read on: "Height five foot four, sallow complexion ... wearing a grey suit and underclothing bearing the markings of the County Asylum.... Hullo!"

"What is it?" said Tarling.

"This is remarkable," said Whiteside, and read

"When the patient escaped, he had bare feet. He takes a very small
size in shoes, probably four or five. A kitchen knife is missing and
the patient may be armed. Boot-makers should be warned...."

"Bare feet!" Tarling rose from the table with a frown on his face. "Sam Stay hated Odette Rider."

The two men exchanged glances.

"Now, do you see who killed Mrs. Rider?" asked Tarling. "She was killed by one who saw Odette Rider go into the house, and did not see her come out; who went in after her to avenge, as he thought, his dead patron. He killed this unhappy woman--the initials on the knife, M.C.A., stand for Middlesex County Asylum, and he brought the knife with him--and discovered his mistake; then, having searched for a pair of shoes to cover his bleeding feet, and having failed to get into the house by any other way, made a circuit of the building, looking for Odette Rider and seeking an entrance at every window."

Whiteside looked at him in astonishment.

"It's a pity you've got money," he said admiringly. "When you retire from this business there'll be a great detective lost."


CHAPTER XXXI

SAM STAY TURNS UP


"I have seen you somewhere before, ain't I?"

The stout clergyman in the immaculate white collar beamed benevolently at the questioner and shook his head with a gentle smile.

"No, my dear friend, I do not think I have ever seen you before."

It was a little man, shabbily dressed, and looking ill. His face was drawn and lined; he had not shaved for days, and the thin, black stubble of hair gave him a sinister look. The clergyman had just walked out of Temple Gardens and was at the end of Villiers Street leading up to the Strand, when he was accosted. He was a happy-looking clergyman, and something of a student, too, if the stout and serious volume under his arm had any significance.

"I've seen you before," said the little man, "I've dreamt about you."

"If you'll excuse me," said the clergyman, "I am afraid I cannot stay. I have an important engagement."

"Hold hard," said the little man, in so fierce a tone that the other stopped. "I tell you I've dreamt about you. I've seen you dancing with four black devils with no clothes on, and you were all fat and ugly."

He lowered his voice and was speaking in a fierce earnest monotone, as though he was reciting some lesson he had been taught.

The clergyman took a pace back in alarm.

"Now,