The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
against this, Tarling thought, it was notorious that criminals did foolish things. They took little or no account of the immediate consequences of their act, and a man like Milburgh, in his desperation, might in his very frenzy overlook the possibility of his crime coming to light through the very deed he had committed to cover himself up.
He had reached the bottom of Edgware Road and was turning the corner of the street, looking across to the Marble Arch, when he heard a voice hail him and turning, saw a cab breaking violently to the edge of the pavement.
It was Inspector Whiteside who jumped out.
“I was just coming to see you,” he said. “I thought your interview with the young lady would be longer. Just wait a moment, till I’ve paid the cabman — by-the-way, I saw your Chink servant and gather you sent him to the Yard on a spoof errand.”
When he returned, he met Tarling’s eye and grinned sympathetically.
“I know what’s in your mind,” he said frankly, “but really the Chief thinks it no more than an extraordinary coincidence. I suppose you made inquiries about your revolver?”
Tarling nodded.
“And can you discover how it came to be in the possession of—” he paused, “the murderer of Thornton Lyne?”
“I have a theory, half-formed, it is true, but still a theory,” said Taxiing. “In fact, it’s hardly so much a theory as an hypothesis.”
Whiteside grinned again.
“This hair-splitting in the matter of logical terms never did mean much in my young life,” he said, “but I take it you have a hunch.”
Without any more to-do, Tarling told the other of the discovery he had made in Ling Chu’s box, the press cuttings, descriptive of the late Mr. Lyne’s conduct in Shanghai and its tragic sequel.
Whiteside listened in silence.
“There may be something on that side,” he said at last when Tarling had finished. “I’ve heard about your Ling Chu. He’s a pretty good policeman, isn’t he?”
“The best in China,” said Tarling promptly, “but I’m not going to pretend that I understand his mind. These are the facts. The revolver, or rather the pistol, was in my cupboard and the only person who could get at it was Ling Chu. There is the second and more important fact imputing motive, that Ling Chu had every reason to hate Thornton Lyne, the man who had indirectly been responsible for his sister’s death. I have been thinking the matter over and I now recall that Ling Chu was unusually silent after he had seen Lyne. He has admitted to me that he has been to Lyne’s Store and in fact has been pursuing inquiries there. We happened to be discussing the possibility of Miss Rider committing the murder and Ling Chu told me that Miss Rider could not drive a motorcar and when I questioned him as to how he knew this, he told me that he had made several inquiries at the Store. This I knew nothing about.
“Here is another curious fact,” Tarling went on. “I have always been under the impression that Ling Chu did not speak English, except a few words of ‘pigeon’ that Chinamen pick up through mixing with foreign devils. Yet he pushed his inquiries at Lyne’s Store amongst the employees, and it is a million to one against his finding any shopgirl who spoke Cantonese!”
“I’ll put a couple of men on to watch him,” said Whiteside, but Tarling shook his head.
“It would be a waste of good men,” he said, “because Ling Chu could lead them just where he wanted to. I tell you he is a better sleuth than any you have got at Scotland Yard, and he has an absolute gift for fading out of the picture under your very nose. Leave Ling Chu to me, I know the way to deal with him,” he added grimly.
“The Little Daffodil!” said Whiteside thoughtfully, repeating the phrase which Tarling had quoted. “That was the Chinese girl’s name, eh? By Jove! It’s something more than a coincidence, don’t you think, Tarling?”
“It may be or may not be,” said Tarling; “there is no such word as daffodil in Chinese. In fact, I am not so certain that the daffodil is a native of China at all, though China’s a mighty big place. Strictly speaking the girl was called ‘The Little Narcissus,’ but as you say, it may be something more than a coincidence that the man who insulted her, is murdered whilst her brother is in London.”
They had crossed the broad roadway as they were speaking and had passed into Hyde Park. Tarling thought whimsically that this open space exercised the same attraction on him as it did upon Mr. Milburgh.
“What were you going to see me about?” he asked suddenly, remembering that Whiteside had been on his way to the hotel when they had met.
“I wanted to give you the last report about Milburgh.”
Milburgh again! All conversation, all thought, all clues led to that mystery man. But what Whiteside had to tell was not especially thrilling. Milburgh had been shadowed day and night, and the record of his doings was a very prosaic one.
But it is out of prosaic happenings that big clues are born.
“I don’t know how Milburgh expects the inquiry into Lyne’s accounts will go,” said Whiteside, “but he is evidently connected, or expects to be connected, with some other business.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Tarling.
“Well,” replied Whiteside, “he has been buying ledgers,” and Tarling laughed.
“That doesn’t seem to be a very offensive proceeding,” he said good-humouredly. “What sort of ledgers?”
“Those heavy things which are used in big offices. You know, the sort of thing that it takes one man all his time to lift. He bought three at Roebuck’s, in City Road, and took them to his house by taxi. Now my theory,” said Whiteside earnestly, “is that this fellow is no ordinary criminal, if he is a criminal at all. It may be that he has been keeping a duplicate set of books.”
“That is unlikely,” interrupted Tarling, “and I say this with due respect for your judgment, Whiteside. It would want to be something more than an ordinary criminal to carry all the details of Lyne’s mammoth business in his head, and it is more than possible that your first theory was right, namely, that he contemplates either going with another firm, or starting a new business of his own. The second supposition is more likely. Anyway, it is no crime to own a ledger, or even three. By-the-way, when did he buy these books?”
“Yesterday,” said Whiteside, “early in the morning, before Lyne’s opened. How did your interview with Miss Rider go off?”
Tarling shrugged his shoulders. He felt a strange reluctance to discuss the girl with the police officer, and realised just how big a fool he was in allowing her sweetness to drug him.
“I am convinced that, whoever she may suspect, she knows nothing of the murder,” he said shortly.
“Then she does suspect somebody?”
Tarling nodded.
“Who?”
Again Tarling hesitated.
“I think she suspects Milburgh,” he said.
He put his hand in the inside of his jacket and took out a pocket case, opened it, and drew forth the two cards bearing the finger impressions he had taken of Odette Rider. It required more than an ordinary effort of will to do this, though he would have found it difficult to explain just what tricks his emotions were playing.
“Here are the impressions you wanted,” he said. “Will you take them?”
Whiteside took the cards with a nod and examined the inky smudges, and all the time Tarling’s heart stood still, for Inspector Whiteside was the recognised authority of the Police Intelligence Department on finger prints and their characteristics.
The survey was a long one.
Tarling