E-text prepared by David Clarke, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
by
EDGAR WALLACE
Ward, Lock & Co., Limited
London and Melbourne
Made and Printed in Great Britain
CONTENTS
I. AN OFFER REJECTED
II. THE HUNTER DECLINES HIS QUARRY
III. THE MAN WHO LOVED LYNE
IV. MURDER
V. FOUND IN LYNE'S POCKET
VI. THE MOTHER OF ODETTE RIDER
VII. THE WOMAN IN THE CASE
VIII. THE SILENCING OF SAM STAY
IX. WHERE THE FLOWERS CAME FROM
X. THE WOMAN AT ASHFORD
XI. "THORNTON LYNE IS DEAD"
XII. THE HOSPITAL BOOK
XIII. TWO SHOTS IN THE NIGHT
XIV. THE SEARCH OF MILBURGH'S COTTAGE
XV. THE OWNER OF THE PISTOL
XVI. THE HEIR
XVII. THE MISSING REVOLVER
XVIII. THE FINGER PRINTS
XIX. LING CHU TELLS THE TRUTH
XX. MR. MILBURGH SEES IT THROUGH
XXI. COVERING THE TRAIL
XXII. THE HEAVY WALLET
XXIII. THE NIGHT VISITOR
XXIV. THE CONFESSION OF ODETTE RIDER
XXV. MILBURGH'S LAST BLUFF
XXVI. IN MRS. RIDER'S ROOM
XXVII. THE LAUGH IN THE NIGHT
XXVIII. THE THUMB-PRINT
XXIX. THE THEORY OF LING CHU
XXX. WHO KILLED MRS. RIDER
XXXI. SAM STAY TURNS UP
XXXII. THE DIARY OF THORNTON LYNE
XXXIII. LING CHU--TORTURER
XXXIV. THE ARREST
XXXV. MILBURGH'S STORY
XXXVI. AT HIGHGATE CEMETERY
XXXVII. LING CHU RETURNS
CHAPTER THE LAST. THE STATEMENT OF SAM STAY
THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY
CHAPTER I
AN OFFER REJECTED
"I am afraid I don't understand you, Mr. Lyne."
Odette Rider looked gravely at the young man who lolled against his open
desk. Her clear skin was tinted with the faintest pink, and there was in
the sober depths of those grey eyes of hers a light which would have
warned a man less satisfied with his own genius and power of persuasion
than Thornton Lyne.
He was not looking at her face. His eyes were running approvingly over
her perfect figure, noting the straightness of the back, the fine poise
of the head, the shapeliness of the slender hands.
He pushed back his long black hair from his forehead and smiled. It
pleased him to believe that his face was cast in an intellectual mould,
and that the somewhat unhealthy pastiness of his skin might be described
as the "pallor of thought."
Presently he looked away from her through the big bay window which
overlooked the crowded floor of Lyne's Stores.
He had had this office built in the entresol and the big windows had been
put in so that he might at any time overlook the most important
department which it was his good fortune to control.
Now and again, as he saw, a head would be turned in his direction, and he
knew that the attention of all the girls was concentrated upon the little
scene, plainly visible from the floor below, in which an unwilling
employee was engaged.
She, too, was conscious of the fact, and her discomfort and dismay
increased. She made a little movement as if to go, but he stopped her.
"You don't understand, Odette," he said. His voice was soft and
melodious, and held the hint of a caress. "Did you read my little book?"
he asked suddenly.
She nodded.
"Yes, I read--some of it," she said, and the colour deepened on her face.
He chuckled.
"I suppose you thought it rather curious that a man in my position should
bother his head to write poetry, eh?" he asked. "Most of it was written
before I came into this beastly shop, my dear--before I developed into a
tradesman!"
She made no reply, and he looked at her curiously.
"What did you think of them?" he asked.
Her lips were trembling, and again he mistook the symptoms.
"I thought they were perfectly horrible," she said in a low voice.
"Horrible!"
He raised his eyebrows.
"How very middle-class you are, Miss Rider!" he scoffed. "Those verses
have been acclaimed by some of the best critics in the country as
reproducing all the beauties of the old Hellenic poetry."
She went to speak, but stopped herself and stood with lips compressed.
Thornton Lyne shrugged his shoulders and strode to the other end of his
luxuriously equipped office.
"Poetry, like cucumbers, is an acquired taste," he said after a while.
"You have to be educated up to some kind of literature. I daresay there
will come a time when you will be grateful that I have given you an
opportunity of meeting beautiful thoughts dressed in beautiful language."
She looked up at this.
"May I go now, Mr. Lyne?" she asked.
"Not yet," he replied coolly. "You said just now you didn't understand
what I was talking about. I'll put it plainer this time. You're a very
beautiful girl, as you probably know, and you are destined, in all
probability, to be the mate of a very average suburban-minded person, who
will give you a life tantamount to slavery. That is the life of the
middle-class woman, as you probably know. And why would you submit to
this bondage? Simply because a person in a black coat and a white collar
has mumbled certain passages over you--passages which have neither
meaning nor, to an intelligent person, significance. I would not take
the trouble of going through such a foolish ceremony, but I would take a
great deal of trouble to make you happy."
He walked towards her slowly and laid one hand upon her shoulder.
Instinctively she shrank back and he laughed.
"What do you say?"
She swung round on him, her eyes blazing but her voice under control.
"I happen to be one of those foolish, suburban-minded people," she said,
"who give significance to those mumbled words you were speaking about.
Yet I am broad-minded enough to believe that the marriage ceremony would
not make you any happier or more unhappy whether it was performed or
omitted. But, whether it were marriage or any other kind of union, I
should at least require a man."
He frowned at her.
"What do you mean?" he asked, and the soft quality of his voice underwent
a change.
Her voice was full of angry tears when she answered him.
"I should not want an erratic creature who puts horrid sentiments into
indifferent verse. I repeat, I should want a man."
His face went livid.
"Do you know whom you are talking to?" he asked, raising his voice.
"I am talking to Thornton Lyne," said she, breathing quickly, "the
proprietor of Lyne's Stores, the employer of Odette Rider who draws three
pounds every week from him."
He was breathless with anger.
"Be careful!" he gasped. "Be careful!"
"I am speaking to a man whose whole life is a reproach to the very name
of man!" she went on speaking rapidly. "A man who is sincere in nothing,
who is living on the brains and reputation of his father, and the money
that has come through the hard work of better men.
"You can't scare me," she cried scornfully, as he took a step towards
her. "Oh, yes, I know I'm going to leave your employment, and I'm leaving
to-night!"
The man was hurt, humiliated, almost crushed by her scorn. This she
suddenly realised and her quick woman's sympathy checked all further
bitterness.
"I'm sorry I've been so unkind," she said in a more gentle tone. "But you
rather provoked me, Mr. Lyne."
He was incapable of speech and could only shake his head and point with
unsteady finger to the door.
"Get out," he whispered.
Odette Rider walked out of the room, but the man did not move. Presently,
however, he crossed to the window and, looking down upon the floor, saw
her trim figure move slowly through the crowd of customers and assistants
and mount the three steps which led to the chief cashier's office.
"You shall pay for this, my girl!" he muttered.
He was wounded beyond forgiveness. He was a rich man's son and had lived
in a sense a sheltered life. He had been denied the advantage which a
public school would have brought to him and had gone to college
surrounded by sycophants and poseurs as blatant as himself, and never
once had the cold breath of criticism been directed at him, except in
what he was wont to describe as the "reptile Press."
He licked his dry lips, and, walking to his desk, pressed a bell. After a
short wait--for he had purposely sent his secretary away--a girl came in.
"Has Mr. Tarling come?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, he's in the board-room. He has been waiting a quarter of an
hour."
He nodded.
"Thank you," he said.
"Shall I tell him----"
"I will go to him myself," said Lyne.
He took a cigarette out of his gold case, struck a match and lit it. His
nerves were shaken, his hands were trembling, but the storm in his heart
was soothing down under the influence of this great thought. Tarling!
What an inspiration! Tarling, with his reputation for ingenuity, his
almost sublime uncanny cleverness. What could be more wonderful than this
coincidence?
He passed with quick steps along the corridor which connected his private
den with the board-room, and came into that spacious apartment with
outstretched hand.
The man who turned to greet him may have been twenty-seven or
thirty-seven. He was tall, but lithe rather than broad. His face was the
colour of mahogany, and the blue eyes turned to Lyne were unwinking and
expressionless. That was the first impression which Lyne received.
He took Lyne's hand in his--it was as soft as a woman's. As they shook
hands Lyne noticed a third figure in the room. He was below middle height
and sat in the shadow thrown by a wall pillar. He too rose, but bowed his
head.
"A Chinaman, eh?" said Lyne, looking at this unexpected apparition with
curiosity. "Oh, of course, Mr. Tarling, I had almost forgotten that
you've almost come straight from China. Won't you sit down?"
He followed the other's example, threw himself into a chair and offered
his cigarette case.
"The work I am going to ask you to do I will discuss later," he said.
"But I must explain, that I was partly attracted to you by the
description I read in one of the newspapers of how you had recovered the
Duchess of Henley's jewels and partly by the stories I heard of you when
I was in China. You're not attached to Scotland Yard, I understand?"
Tarling shook his head.
"No," he said quietly. "I was regularly attached to the police in
Shanghai, and I had intended joining up with Scotland Yard; in fact, I
came over for that purpose. But several things happened which made me
open my own detective agency, the most important of which happenings, was
that Scotland Yard refused to give me the free hand I require!"
The other nodded quickly.
China rang with the achievements of Jack Oliver Tarling, or, as the
Chinese criminal world had named him in parody of his name, "Lieh Jen,"
"The Hunter of Men."
Lyne judged all people by his own standard, and saw in this unemotional
man a possible tool, and in all probability a likely accomplice.
The detective force in Shanghai did curious things by all accounts, and
were not too scrupulous as to whether they kept within the strict letter
of the law. There were even rumours that "The Hunter of Men" was not
above torturing his prisoners, if by so doing he could elicit confessions
which could implicate some greater criminal. Lyne did not and could not
know all the legends which had grown around the name of "The Hunter" nor
could he be expected in reason to differentiate between the truth and the
false.
"I pretty well know why you've sent for me," Tarling went on. He spoke
slowly and had a decided drawl. "You gave me a rough outline in your
letter. You suspect a member of your staff of having consistently robbed
the firm for many years. A Mr. Milburgh, your chief departmental
manager."
Lyne stopped him with a gesture and lowered his voice.
"I want you to forget that for a little while, Mr. Tarling," he said. "In
fact, I am going to introduce you to Milburgh, and maybe, Milburgh can
help us in my scheme. I do not say that Milburgh is honest, or that my
suspicions were unfounded. But for the moment I have a much greater
business on hand, and you will oblige me if you forget all the things
I have said about Milburgh. I will ring for him now."
He walked to a long table which ran half the length of the room, took up
a telephone which stood at one end, and spoke to the operator.
"Tell Mr. Milburgh to come to me in the board-room, please," he said.
Then he went back to his visitor.
"That matter of Milburgh can wait," he said. "I'm not so sure that I
shall proceed any farther with it. Did you make inquiries at all? If so,
you had better tell me the gist of them before Milburgh comes."
Tarling took a small white card from his pocket and glanced at it.
"What salary are you paying Milburgh?"
"Nine hundred a year," replied Lyne.
"He is living at the rate of five thousand," said Tarling. "I may even
discover that he's living at a much larger rate. He has a house up the
river, entertains very lavishly----"
But the other brushed aside the report impatiently.
"No, let that wait," he cried. "I tell you I have much more important
business. Milburgh may be a thief----"
"Did you send for me, sir?"
He turned round quickly. The door had opened without noise, and a man
stood on the threshold of the room, an ingratiating smile on his face,
his hands twining and intertwining ceaselessly as though he was washing
them with invisible soap.