The Daffodil Mystery

Sam Stay looked at the black coat and the white collar in doubt.

"How long have you been a clergyman, Mr. Milburgh?" he asked.

"Oh—er—for a little while," said Mr. Milburgh glibly, trying to remember what he had heard about Sam Stay. But the little man saved him the labour of remembering.

"They took me away to a place in the country," he said, "but you know I wasn't mad, Mr. Milburgh. He wouldn't have had a fellow hanging round him who was mad, would he? You're a clergyman, eh?" He nodded his head wisely, then asked, with a sudden eagerness: "Did he make you a clergyman? He could do wonderful things, could Mr. Lyne, couldn't he? Did you preach over him when they buried him in that little vault in 'Ighgate? I've seen it—I go there every day, Mr. Milburgh," said Sam. "I only found it by accident. 'Also Thornton Lyne, his son.' There's two little doors that open like church doors."

Mr. Milburgh drew a long sigh. Of course, he remembered now. Sam Stay had been removed to a lunatic asylum, and he was dimly conscious of the fact that the man had escaped. It was not a pleasant experience, talking with an escaped lunatic. It might, however, be a profitable one. Mr. Milburgh was a man who let very few opportunities slip. What could he make out of this, he wondered? Again Sam Stay supplied the clue.

"I'm going to settle with that girl–" He stopped and closed his lips tightly, and looked with a cunning little smile at Milburgh. "I didn't say anything, did I?" he asked with a queer little chuckle. "I didn't say anything that would give me away, did I?"

"No, my friend," said Mr. Milburgh, still in the character of the benevolent pastor. "To what girl do you refer?"

The face of Sam Stay twisted into a malignant smile.

"There's only one girl," he said between his teeth, "and I'll get her. I'll settle with her! I've got something here–" he felt in his pocket in a vague, aimless way. "I thought I had it, I've carried it about so long; but I've got it somewhere, I know I have!"

"So you hate Miss Rider, do you?" asked Milburgh.

"Hate her!"

The little fellow almost shouted the words, his face purple, his eyes starting from his head, his two hands twisted convulsively.

"I thought I'd finished her last night," he began, and stopped.

The words had no significance for Mr. Milburgh, since he had seen no newspapers that day.

"Listen," Sam went on. "Have you ever loved anybody?"

Mr. Milburgh was silent. To him Odette Rider was nothing, but about the woman Odette Rider had called mother and the woman he called wife, circled the one precious sentiment in his life.

"Yes, I think I have," he said after a pause. "Why?"

"Well, you know how I feel, don't you?" said Sam Stay huskily. "You know how I want to get the better of this party who brought him down. She lured him on—lured him on—oh, my God!" He buried his face in his hands and swayed from side to side.

Mr. Milburgh looked round in some apprehension. No one was in sight.

Odette would be the principal witness against him and this man hated her. He had small cause for loving her. She was the one witness that the Crown could produce, now that he had destroyed the documentary evidence of his crime. What case would they have against him if they stood him in the dock at the Old Bailey, if Odette Rider were not forthcoming to testify against him?

He thought the matter over cold-bloodedly, as a merchant might consider some commercial proposition which is put before him. He had learnt that Odette Rider was in London in a nursing home, as the result of a set of curious circumstances.

He had called up Lyne's Store that morning on the telephone to discover whether there had been any inquiries for him and had heard from his chief assistant that a number of articles of clothing had been ordered to be sent to this address for Miss Rider's use. He had wondered what had caused her collapse, and concluded that it was the result of the strain to which the girl had been subjected in that remarkable interview which she and he had had with Tarling at Hertford on the night before.

"Suppose you met Miss Rider?" he said. "What could you do?"

Sam Stay showed his teeth in a grin.

"Well, anyway, you're not likely to meet her for some time. She is in a nursing home," said Milburgh, "and the nursing home," he went on deliberately, "is at 304, Cavendish Place."

"304, Cavendish Place," repeated Sam. "That's near Regent Street, isn't it?"

"I don't know where it is," said Mr. Milburgh. "She is at 304, Cavendish Place, so that it is very unlikely that you will meet her for some time."

He rose to his feet, and he saw the man was shaking from head to foot like a man in the grip of ague.

"304, Cavendish Place," he repeated, and without another word turned his back on Mr. Milburgh and slunk away.

That worthy gentleman looked after him and shook his head, and then rising, turned and walked in the other direction. It was just as easy to take a ticket for the Continent at Waterloo station as it was at Charing Cross. In many ways it was safer.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE DIARY OF THORNTON LYNE

Tarling should have been sleeping. Every bone and sinew in him ached for rest. His head was sunk over a table in his flat. Lyne's diaries stood in two piles on the table, the bigger pile that which he had read, the lesser being those which Tarling had yet to examine.

The diaries had been blank books containing no printed date lines. In some cases one book would cover a period of two or three years, in other cases three or four books would be taken up by the record of a few months. The pile on the left grew, and the pile on the right became smaller, until there was only one book—a diary newer than the others which had been fastened by two brass locks, but had been opened by the Scotland Yard experts.

Tarling took up this volume and turned the leaves. As he had expected, it was the current diary—that on which Thornton Lyne had been engaged at the time of his murder. Tarling opened the book in a spirit of disappointment. The earlier books had yielded nothing save a revelation of the writer's egotism. He had read Lyne's account of the happenings in Shanghai, but after all that was nothing fresh, and added little to the sum of the detective's knowledge.

He did not anticipate that the last volume would yield any more promising return for his study. Nevertheless, he read it carefully, and presently drawing a writing pad toward him, he began to note down excerpts from the diary. There was the story, told in temperate language and with surprising mildness, of Odette Rider's rejection of Thornton Lyne's advances. It was a curiously uninteresting record, until he came to a date following the release of Sam Stay from gaol, and here Thornton Lyne enlarged upon the subject of his "humiliation."

"Stay is out of prison," the entry ran. "It is pathetic to see how this man adores me. I almost wish sometimes that I could keep him out of gaol; but if I did so, and converted him into a dull, respectable person, I should miss these delicious experiences which his worship affords. It is good to bask in the bright sunlight of his adoration! I talked to him of Odette. A strange matter to discuss with a lout, but he was so wonderful a listener! I exaggerated, the temptation was great. How he loathed her by the time I was through … he actually put forward a plan to 'spoil her looks,' as he put it. He had been working in the same prison gang as a man who was undergoing a term of penal servitude for 'doing in' his girl that way … vitriol was used, and Sam suggested that he should do the work.... I was horrified, but it gave me an idea. He says he can give me a key that will open any door. Suppose I went … in the dark? And I could leave a clue behind. What clue? Here is a thought. Suppose I left something unmistakably Chinese? Tarling had evidently been friendly with the girl … something Chinese might place him under suspicion...."

The diary ended with the word "suspicion," an appropriate ending. Tarling read the passages again and again until he almost had them by heart. Then he closed the book and locked it away in his drawer.

He sat with his chin on his hand for half an hour. He was piecing together the puzzle which Thornton Lyne had made so much more simple. The mystery was clearing up. Thornton Lyne had gone to that flat not in response to the telegram, but with the object of compromising and possibly ruining the girl. He had gone with the little slip of paper inscribed with Chinese characters, intending to leave the Hong in a conspicuous place, that somebody else might be blamed for his infamy.

Milburgh had been in the flat for another purpose. The two men had met; there had been a quarrel; and Milburgh had fired the fatal shot. That part of the story solved the mystery of Thornton Lyne's list slippers and his Chinese characters; his very presence there was cleared up. He thought of Sam Stay's offer.

It came in a flash to Tarling that the man who had thrown the bottle of vitriol at him, who had said he had kept it for years—was Sam Stay. Stay, with his scheme for blasting the woman who, he believed, had humiliated his beloved patron.

And now for Milburgh, the last link in the chain.

Tarling had arranged for the superintendent in charge of the Cannon Row Police Station to notify him if any news came through. The inspector's message did not arrive, and Tarling went down through Whitehall to hear the latest intelligence at first hand. That was to be precious little. As he was talking there arrived on the scene an agitated driver, the proprietor of a taxicab which had been lost. An ordinary case such as come the way of the London police almost every day. The cabman had taken a man and a woman to one of the West End theatres, and had been engaged to wait during the evening and pick them up when the performance was through. After setting down his fares, he had gone to a small eating-house for a bit of supper. When he came out the cab had disappeared.

"I know who done it," he said vehemently, "and if I had him here, I'd...."

"How do you know?"

"He looked in at the coffee-shop while I was eating my bit of food."

"What did he look like?" asked the station inspector.

"He was a man with a white face," said the victim, "I could pick him out of a thousand. And what's more, he had a brand-new pair of boots on."

Tarling had strolled away from the officer's desk whilst this conversation was in progress, but now he returned.

"Did he speak at all?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said the cabman. "I happened to ask him if he was looking for anybody, and he said no, and then went on to talk a lot of rubbish about a man who had been the best friend any poor chap could have had. My seat happened to be nearest the door, that's how I got into conversation with him. I thought he was off his nut."

"Yes, yes, go on," said Tarling impatiently. "What happened then?"

"Well, he went out," said the cabman, "and presently I heard a cab being cranked up. I thought it was one of the other drivers—there were several cabs outside. The eating-house is a place which cabmen use, and I didn't take very much notice until I came out and found my cab gone and the old devil I'd left in charge in a public-house drinking beer with the money this fellow had given him."

"Sounds like your man, sir," said the inspector, looking at Tarling.

"That's Sam Stay all right," he said, "but it's news to me that he could drive a taxi."

The inspector nodded.

"Oh, I know Sam Stay all right, sir. We've had him in here two or three times. He used to be a taxi-driver—didn't you know that?"

Tarling did not know that. He had intended looking up Sam's record that day, but something had occurred to put the matter out of his mind.

"Well, he can't go far," he said. "You'll circulate the description of the cab, I suppose? He may be easier to find. He can't hide the cab as well as he can hide himself, and if he imagines that the possession of a car is going to help him to escape he's making a mistake."

Tarling was going back to Hertford that night, and had informed Ling Chu of his intention. He left Cannon Row Police Station, walked across the road to Scotland Yard, to confer with Whiteside, who had promised to meet him. He was pursuing independent inquiries and collecting details of evidence regarding the Hertford crime.

Whiteside was not in when Tarling called, and the sergeant on duty in the little office by the main door hurried forward.

"This came for you two hours ago, sir," he said "We thought you were in Hertford."

"This" was a letter addressed in pencil, and Mr. Milburgh had made no attempt to disguise his handwriting. Tarling tore open the envelope and read the contents:

"Dear Mr. Tarling," it began. "I have just read in the Evening Press, with the deepest sorrow and despair, the news that my dearly Beloved wife, Catherine Rider, has been foully murdered. How terrible to think that a few hours ago I was conversing with her assassin, as I believe Sam Stay to be, and had inadvertently given him information as to where Miss Rider was to be found! I beg of you that you will lose no time in saving her from the hands of this cruel madman, who seems to have only one idea, and that to avenge the death of the late Mr. Thornton Lyne. When this reaches you I shall be beyond the power of human vengeance, for I have determined to end a life which has held so much sorrow and disappointment.—M."

He was satisfied that Mr. Milburgh would not commit suicide, and the information was superfluous that Sam Stay had murdered Mrs. Rider. It was the knowledge that this vengeful lunatic knew where Odette Rider was staying which made Tarling sweat.

"Where is Mr. Whiteside?" he asked.

"He has gone to Cambours Restaurant to meet somebody, sir," said the sergeant.

The somebody was one of Milburgh's satellites at Lyne's Store. Tarling must see him without delay. The inspector had control of all the official arrangements connected with the case, and it would be necessary to consult him before he could place detectives to watch the nursing home in Cavendish Place.

He found a cab and drove to Cambours, which was in Soho, and was fortunate enough to discover Whiteside in the act of leaving.

"I didn't get much from that fellow," Whiteside began, when Tarling handed him the letter.

The Scotland Yard man read it through without comment and handed it back.

"Of course he hasn't committed suicide. It's the last thing in the world that men of the Milburgh type ever think about seriously. He is a cold-blooded villain. Imagine him sitting down to write calmly about his wife's murderer!"

"What do you think of the other matter—the threat against Odette?"

Whiteside nodded.

"There may be something in it," he said. "Certainly we cannot take risks. Has anything been heard of Stay?"

Tarling told the story of the stolen taxicab.

"We'll have him," said Whiteside confidently. "He'll have no pals, and without pals in the motor business it is practically impossible to get a car away."

He got into Tarling's cab, and a few minutes later they were at the nursing home.

The matron came to them, a sedate, motherly lady.

"I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour of the night," said Tarling, sensing her disapproval. "But information has come to me this evening which renders it necessary that Miss Rider should be guarded."

"Guarded?" said the matron in surprise. "I don't quite understand you, Mr. Tarling. I had come down to give you rather a blowing up about Miss Rider. You know she is absolutely unfit to go out. I thought I made that clear to you when you were here this morning?"

"Go out?" said the puzzled Tarling. "What do you mean? She is not going out."

It was the matron's turn to be surprised.

"But you sent for her half an hour ago," she said.

"I sent for her?" said Tarling, turning pale. "Tell me, please, what has happened?"

"About half an hour ago, or it may be a little longer," said the matron, "a cabman came to the door and told me that he had been sent by the authorities to fetch Miss Rider at once—she was wanted in connection with her mother's murder."

Something in Tarling's face betrayed his emotion.

"Did you not send for her?" she asked in alarm.

Tarling shook his head.

"What was the man like who called?" he asked:

"A very ordinary-looking man, rather under-sized and ill-looking—it was the taxi-driver."

"You have no idea which way they went?"

"No," replied the matron. "I very much objected to Miss Rider going at all, but when I gave her the message, which apparently had come from you, she insisted upon going."

Tarling groaned. Odette Rider was in the power of a maniac who hated her, who had killed her mother and had cherished a plan for disfiguring the beauty of the girl whom he believed had betrayed his beloved master.

Without any further words he turned and left the waiting-room, followed by Whiteside.

"It's hopeless," he said, when they were outside, "hopeless, hopeless! My God! How terrible! I dare not think of it. If Milburgh is alive he shall suffer."

He gave directions to the cab-driver and followed Whiteside into the cab.

"I'm going back to my flat to pick up Ling Chu," he said. "I can't afford to lose any help he may be able to give us."

Whiteside was pardonably piqued.

"I don't know if your Ling Chu will be able to do very much in the way of trailing a taxicab through London." And then, recognising something of the other's distress, he said more gently, "Though I agree with you that every help we can get we shall need."

On their arrival at the Bond Street flat, Tarling opened the door and went upstairs, followed by the other. The flat was in darkness—an extraordinary circumstance, for it was an understood thing that Ling Chu should not leave the house whilst his master was out. And Ling Chu had undoubtedly left. The dining-room was empty. The first thing Tarling saw, when he turned on the light, was a strip of rice paper on which the ink was scarcely dry. Just half a dozen Chinese characters and no more.

"If you return before I, learn that I go to find the little-little woman," read Tarling in astonishment.

"Then he knows she's gone! Thank God for that!" he said. "I wonder–"

He stopped. He thought he had heard a low moan, and catching the eye of Whiteside, he saw that the Scotland Yard man had detected the same sound.

"Sounds like somebody groaning," he said. "Listen!"

He bent his head and waited, and presently it came again.

In two strides Tarling was at the door of Ling Chu's sleeping place, but it was locked. He stooped to the key-hole and listened, and again heard the moan. With a thrust of his shoulder he had broken the door open and dashed in.

The sight that met his eyes was a remarkable one. There was a man lying on the bed, stripped to the waist. His hands and his legs were bound and a white cloth covered his face. But what Tarling saw before all else was that across the centre of the broad chest were four little red lines, which Tarling recognised. They were "persuaders," by which native Chinese policemen secretly extract confessions from unwilling criminals—light cuts with a sharp knife on the surface of the skin, and after–

He looked around for the "torture bottle," but it was not in sight.

"Who is this?" he asked, and lifted the cloth from the man's face.

It was Milburgh.

CHAPTER XXXIII

LING CHU—TORTURER

Much had happened to Mr. Milburgh between the time of his discovery lying bound and helpless and showing evidence that he had been in the hands of a Chinese torturer and the moment he left Sam Stay. He had read of the murder, and had been shocked, and, in his way, grieved.

It was not to save Odette Rider that he sent his note to Scotland Yard, but rather to avenge himself upon the man who had killed the only woman in the world who had touched his warped nature. Nor had he any intention of committing suicide. He had the passports which he had secured a year before in readiness for such a step (he had kept that clerical uniform of his by him all that time) and was ready at a moment's notice to leave the country.

His tickets were in his pocket, and when he despatched the district messenger to Scotland Yard he was on his way to Waterloo station to catch the Havre boat train. The police, he knew, would be watching the station, but he had no fear that they would discover beneath the benign exterior of a country clergyman, the wanted manager of Lyne's Store, even supposing that there was a warrant out for his arrest.

He was standing at a bookstall, purchasing literature to while away the hours of the journey, when he felt a hand laid on his arm and experienced a curious sinking sensation. He turned to look into a brown mask of a face he had seen before.

"Well, my man," he asked with a smile, "what can I do for you?"

He had asked the question in identical terms of Sam Stay—his brain told him that much, mechanically.

"You will come with me, Mr. Milburgh," said Ling Chu. "It will be better for you if you do not make any trouble."

"You are making a mistake."

"If I am making a mistake," said Ling Chu calmly, "you have only to tell that policeman that I have mistaken you for Milburgh, who is wanted by the police on a charge of murder, and I shall get into very serious trouble."

Milburgh's lips were quivering with fear and his face was a pasty grey.

"I will come," he said.

Ling Chu walked by his side, and they passed out of Waterloo station. The journey to Bond Street remained in Milburgh's memory like a horrible dream. He was not used to travelling on omnibuses, being something of a sybarite who spared nothing to ensure his own comfort. Ling Chu on the contrary had a penchant for buses and seemed to enjoy them.

No word was spoken until they reached the sitting-room of Tarling's flat. Milburgh expected to see the detective. He had already arrived at the conclusion that Ling Chu was but a messenger who had been sent by the man from Shanghai to bring him to his presence. But there was no sign of Tarling.

"Now, my friend, what do you want?" he asked. "It is true I am Mr. Milburgh, but when you say that I have committed murder you are telling a wicked lie."

He had gained some courage, because he had expected in the first place to be taken immediately to Scotland Yard and placed in custody. The fact that Tarling's flat lay at the end of the journey seemed to suggest that the situation was not as desperate as he had imagined.

Ling Chu, turning suddenly upon Milburgh, gripped him by the wrist, half-turning as he did so. Before Milburgh knew what was happening, he was lying on the floor, face downwards, with Ling Chu's knee in the small of his back. He felt something like a wire loop slipped about his wrists, and suffered an excruciating pain as the Chinaman tightened the connecting link of the native handcuff.

"Get up," said Ling Chu sternly, and, exerting a surprising strength, lifted the man to his feet.

"What are you going to do?" said Milburgh, his teeth chattering with fear.

There was no answer. Ling Chu gripped the man by one hand and opening the door with the other, pushed him into a room which was barely furnished. Against the wall there was an iron bed, and on to this the man was pushed, collapsing in a heap.

The Chinese thief-catcher went about his work in a scientific fashion. First he fastened and threaded a length of silk rope through one of the rails of the bed and into the slack of this he lifted Milburgh's head, so that he could not struggle except at the risk of being strangled.

Ling Chu turned him over, unfastened the handcuffs, and methodically bound first one wrist and then the other to the side of the bed.

"What are you going to do?" repeated Milburgh, but the Chinaman made no reply.

He produced from a belt beneath his blouse a wicked-looking knife, and the manager opened his mouth to shout. He was beside himself with terror, but any cause for fear had yet to come. The Chinaman stopped the cry by dropping a pillow on the man's face, and began deliberately to cut the clothing on the upper part of his body.

"If you cry out," he said calmly, "the people will think it is I who am singing! Chinamen have no music in their voices, and sometimes when I have sung my native songs, people have come up to discover who was suffering."