The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
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 stepdaughter. What is more likely than that he should use his stepdaughter 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. Bootmakers 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.”
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, my good man,” he said severely, “you ought not to stop gentlemen in the street and talk that kind of nonsense. I have never met you before in my life. My name is the Reverend Josiah Jennings.”
“Your name is Milburgh,” said the other. “Yes, that’s it, Milburgh. Heused to talk about you! That lovely man — here!” He clutched the clergyman’s sleeve and Milburgh’s face went a shade paler. There was a concentrated fury in the grip on his arm and a strange wildness in the man’s speech. “Do you know where he is? In a beautivault built like an ‘ouse in Highgate Cemetery. There’s two little doors that open like the door of a church, and you go down some steps to it.”
“Who are you?” asked Milburgh, his teeth chattering.
“Don’t you know me?” The little man peered at him. “You’ve heard him talk about me. Sam Stay — why, I worked for two days in your Stores, I did. And you — you’ve only got what he’s given you. Every penny you earned he gave you, did Mr. Lyne. He was a friend to everybody — to the poor, even to a hook like me.”
His eyes filled with tears and Mr. Milburgh looked round to see if he was being observed.
“Now, don’t talk nonsense!” he said under his breath, “and listen, my man; if anybody asks you whether you have seen Mr. Milburgh, you haven’t, you understand?”
“Oh, I understand,” said the man. “But I knew you! There’s nobody connected with him that I don’t remember. He lifted me up out of the gutter, he did. He’s my idea of God!”
They had reached a quiet corner of the Gardens and Milburgh motioned the man to sit beside him on a garden seat.
For the first time that day he experienced a sense of confidence in the wisdom of his choice of disguise. The sight of a clergyman speaking with a seedy-looking man might excite comment, but not suspicion. After all, it was the business of clergymen to talk to seedy-looking men, and they might be seen engaged in the most earnest and confidential conversation and he would suffer no loss of caste.
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