The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
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 undersized and ill-looking — it was the taxidriver.”
“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 diningroom 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 keyhole 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.
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 sittingroom 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