The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
round the house,” insisted Ling Chu, “and, therefore, I think it was a woman whose feet were bare.”
“Are there any marks of a man beside us three?”
“I was coming to that,” said Ling Chu. “There is a very faint trace of a man who came early, because the wet footsteps are over his; also he left, but there is no sign of him on the gravel, only the mark of a wheel-track.”
“That was Milburgh,” said Tarling.
“If a foot has not touched the ground,” explained Ling Chu, “it would leave little trace. That is why the woman’s foot about the house is so hard for me, for I cannot find it on the stair. Yet I know it came from the house because I can see it leading from the door. Come, master, I will show you.”
He led the way down the stairs into the garden, and then for the first time Whiteside noticed that the Chinaman was barefooted.
“You haven’t mixed your own footmarks up with somebody else’s?” he asked jocularly.
Ling Chu shook his head.
“I left my shoes outside the door because it is easier for me to work so,” he said calmly, slipping his feet into his small shoes.
He led the way to the side of the house, and there pointed out the footprints. They were unmistakably feminine. Where the heel was, was a deep crescent-shaped hole, which recurred at intervals all round the house. Curiously enough, they were to be found in front of almost every window, as though the mysterious visitor had walked over the garden border as if seeking to find an entrance.
“They look more like slippers than shoes to me. They’re undoubtedly a woman’s,” said Whiteside, examining one of the impressions. “What do you think, Tarling?”
Tarling nodded and led the way back to the room.
“What is your theory, Ling Chu?” he asked.
“Somebody came into the house,” said the Chinaman, “squeezed through the door below and up the stairs. First that somebody killed and then went to search the house, but could not get through the door.”
“That’s right,” said Whiteside. “You mean the door that shuts off this little wing from the rest of the house. That was locked, was it not, Tarling, when you made the discovery?”
“Yes,” said Tarling, “it was locked.”
“When they found they could not get into the house,” Ling Chu went on, “they tried to get through one of the windows.”
“They, they?” said Tarling impatiently. “Who are they? Do you mean the woman?”
The new theory was disturbing. He had pierced the second actor in the tragedy — a brown vitriol burn on the back of his hand reminded him of his existence — but who was the third?
“I mean the woman,” replied Ling Chu quietly.
“But who in God’s name wanted to get into the house after murdering Mrs. Rider?” asked Whiteside irritably. “Your theory is against all reason, Ling Chu. When a person has committed a murder they want to put as much distance between themselves and the scene of the crime as they can in the shortest possible space of time.”
Ling Chu did not reply.
“How many people are concerned in this murder?” said Tarling. “A barefooted man or woman came in and killed Mrs. Rider; a second person made the round of the house, trying to get in through one of the windows—”
“Whether it was one person or two I cannot tell,” replied Ling Chu.
Tarling made a further inspection of the little wing. It was, as Ling Chu had said and as he had explained to the Chinaman, cut off from the rest of the house, and had evidently been arranged to give Mr. Milburgh the necessary privacy upon his visits to Hertford. The wing consisted of three rooms; a bedroom, leading from the sittingroom, evidently used by Mrs. Rider, for her clothes were hanging in the wardrobe; the sittingroom in which the murder was committed, and the spare room through which he had passed with Odette to the gallery over the hall.
It was through the door in this room that admission was secured to the house.
“There’s nothing to be done but to leave the local police in charge and get back to London,” said Tarling when the inspection was concluded.
“And arrest Milburgh,” suggested Whiteside. “Do you accept Ling Chu’s theory?”
Tarling shook his head.
“I am loath to reject it,” he said, “because he is the most amazingly clever tracker. He can trace footmarks which are absolutely invisible to the eye, and he has a bushman’s instinct which in the old days in China led to some extraordinary results.”
They returned to town by car, Ling Chu riding beside the chauffeur, smoking an interminable chain of cigarettes. Tarling spoke very little during the journey, his mind being fully occupied with the latest development of a mystery, the solution of which still evaded him.
The route through London to Scotland Yard carried him through Cavendish Place, where the nursing home was situated in which Odette Rider lay. He stopped the car to make inquiries, and found that the girl had recovered from the frenzy of grief into which the terrible discovery of the morning had thrown her, and had fallen into a quiet sleep.
“That’s good news, anyway,” he said, rejoining his companion. “I was half beside myself with anxiety.”
“You take a tremendous interest in Miss Rider, don’t you?” asked Whiteside dryly.
Tarling brindled, then laughed.
“Oh, yes, I take an interest,” he admitted, “but it is very natural.”
“Why natural?” asked Whiteside.
“Because,” replied Tarling deliberately, “Miss Rider is going to be my wife.”
“Oh!” said Whiteside in blank amazement, and had nothing more to say.
The warrant for Milburgh’s arrest was waiting for them, and placed in the hands of Whiteside for execution.
“We’ll give him no time,” said the officer. “I’m afraid he’s had a little too much grace, and we shall be very lucky if we find him at home.”
As he had suspected, the house in Camden Town was empty, and the woman who came daily to do the cleaning of the house was waiting patiently by the iron gate. Mr. Milburgh, she told them, usually admitted her at half-past eight. Even if he was “in the country” he was back at the house before her arrival.
Whiteside fitted a skeleton key into the lock of the gate, opened it (the charwoman protesting in the interests of her employer) and went up the flagged path. The door of the cottage was a more difficult proposition, being fitted with a patent lock. Tarling did not stand on ceremony, but smashed one of the windows, and grinned as he did so.
“Listen to that?”
The shrill tinkle of a bell came to their ears.
“Burglar alarm,” said Tarling laconically, and pushed back the catch, threw up the window, and stepped into the little room where he had interviewed Mr. Milburgh.
The house was empty. They went from room to room, searching the bureaux and cupboards. In one of these Tarling made a discovery. It was no more than a few glittering specks which he swept from a shelf into the palm of his hand.
“If that isn’t thermite, I’m a Dutchman,” he said. “At any rate, we’ll be able to convict Mr. Milburgh of arson if we can’t get him for murder. We’ll send this to the Government analyst right away, Whiteside. If Milburgh did not kill Thornton Lyne, he certainly burnt down the premises of Dashwood and Solomon to destroy the evidence of his theft.”
It was Whiteside who made the second discovery.