THE HUNTER DECLINES HIS QUARRY
"This is Mr. Milburgh," said Lyne awkwardly.
If Mr. Milburgh had heard the last words of his employer, his face did
not betray the fact. His smile was set, and not only curved the lips but
filled the large, lustreless eyes. Tarling gave him a rapid survey and
drew his own conclusions. The man was a born lackey, plump of face, bald
of head, and bent of shoulder, as though he lived in a perpetual gesture
of abasement.
"Shut the door, Milburgh, and sit down. This is Mr. Tarling. Er--Mr.
Tarling is--er--a detective."
"Indeed, sir?"
Milburgh bent a deferential head in the direction of Tarling, and the
detective, watching for some change in colour, some twist of face--any
of those signs which had so often betrayed to him the convicted
wrongdoer--looked in vain.
"A dangerous man," he thought.
He glanced out of the corner of his eye to see what impression the man
had made upon Ling Chu. To the ordinary eye Ling Chu remained an
impassive observer. But Tarling saw that faint curl of lip, an almost
imperceptible twitch of the nostrils, which invariably showed on the face
of his attendant when he "smelt" a criminal.
"Mr. Tarling is a detective," repeated Lyne. "He is a gentleman I heard
about when I was in China--you know I was in China for three months, when
I made my tour round the world?" he asked Tarling.
Tarling nodded.
"Oh yes, I know," he said. "You stayed at the Bund Hotel. You spent
a great deal of time in the native quarter, and you had rather an
unpleasant experience as the result of making an experiment in opium
smoking."
Lyne's face went red, and then he laughed.
"You know more about me than I know about you, Tarling," he said, with a
note of asperity in his voice, and turned again to his subordinate.
"I have reason to believe that there has been money stolen in this
business by one of my cashiers," he said.
"Impossible, sir!" said the shocked Mr. Milburgh. "Wholly impossible! Who
could have done it? And how clever of you to have found it out, sir! I
always say that you see what we old ones overlook even though it's right
under our noses!"
Mr. Lyne smiled complacently.
"It will interest you to know, Mr. Tarling," he said, "that I myself have
some knowledge of and acquaintance with the criminal classes. In fact,
there is one unfortunate protégé of mine whom I have tried very hard to
reform for the past four years, who is coming out of prison in a couple
of days. I took up this work," he said modestly, "because I feel it is
the duty of us who are in a more fortunate position, to help those who
have not had a chance in the cruel competition of the world."
Tarling was not impressed.
"Do you know the person who has been robbing you?" he asked.
"I have reason to believe it is a girl whom I have summarily dismissed
to-night, and whom I wish you to watch."
The detective nodded.
"This is rather a primitive business," he said with the first faint hint
of a smile he had shown. "Haven't you your own shop detective who could
take that job in hand? Petty larceny is hardly in my line. I understood
that this was bigger work----"
He stopped, because it was obviously impossible to explain just why
he had thought as much, in the presence of the man whose conduct,
originally, had been the subject of his inquiries.
"To you it may seem a small matter. To me, it is very important," said
Mr. Lyne profoundly. "Here is a girl, highly respected by all her
companions and consequently a great influence on their morals, who, as I
have reason to believe, has steadily and persistently falsified my books,
taking money from the firm, and at the same time has secured the goodwill
of all with whom she has been brought into contact. Obviously she is more
dangerous than another individual who succumbs to a sudden temptation. It
may be necessary to make an example of this girl, but I want you clearly
to understand, Mr. Tarling, that I have not sufficient evidence to
convict her; otherwise I might not have called you in."
"You want me to get the evidence, eh?" said Tarling curiously.
"Who is the lady, may I venture to ask, sir?"
It was Milburgh who interposed the question.
"Miss Rider," replied Lyne.
"Miss Rider!"
Milburgh's face took on a look of blank surprise, as he gasped the words.
"Miss Rider--oh, no, impossible!"
"Why impossible?" demanded Mr. Lyne sharply.
"Well, sir, I meant----" stammered the manager, "it is so unlikely--she
is such a nice girl----"
Thornton Lyne shot a suspicious glance at him.
"You have no particular reason for wishing to shield Miss Rider, have
you?" he asked coldly.
"No, sir, not at all. I beg of you not to think that," appealed the
agitated Mr. Milburgh, "only it seems so--extraordinary."
"All things are extraordinary that are out of the common," snapped Lyne.
"It would be extraordinary if you were accused of stealing, Milburgh. It
would be very extraordinary indeed, for example, if we discovered that
you were living a five-thousand pounds life on a nine-hundred pounds
salary, eh?"
Only for a second did Milburgh lose his self-possession. The hand that
went to his mouth shook, and Tarling, whose eyes had never left the man's
face, saw the tremendous effort which he was making to recover his
equanimity.
"Yes, sir, that would be extraordinary," said Milburgh steadily.
Lyne had lashed himself again into the old fury, and if his vitriolic
tongue was directed at Milburgh, his thoughts were centred upon that
proud and scornful face which had looked down upon him in his office.
"It would be extraordinary if you were sent to penal servitude as the
result of my discovery that you had been robbing the firm for years," he
growled, "and I suppose everybody else in the firm would say the same as
you--how extraordinary!"
"I daresay they would, sir," said Mr. Milburgh, his old smile back, the
twinkle again returning to his eyes, and his hands rubbing together in
ceaseless ablutions. "It would sound extraordinary, and it would be
extraordinary, and nobody here would be more surprised than the
unfortunate victim--ha! ha!"
"Perhaps not," said Lyne coldly. "Only I want to say a few words in your
presence, and I would like you to give them every attention. You have
been complaining to me for a month past," he said speaking with
deliberation, "about small sums of money being missing from the cashier's
office."
It was a bold thing to say, and in many ways a rash thing. He was
dependent for the success of his hastily-formed plan, not only upon
Milburgh's guilt, but upon Milburgh's willingness to confess his guilt.
If the manager agreed to stand sponsor to this lie, he admitted his own
peculations, and Tarling, to whom the turn of the conversation had at
first been unintelligible, began dimly to see the drift it was taking.
"I have complained that sums of money have been missing for the past
month?" repeated Milburgh dully.
The smile had gone from his lips and eyes. His face was haggard--he was a
man at bay.
"That is what I said," said Lyne watching him. "Isn't that the fact?"
There was a long pause, and presently Milburgh nodded.
"That is the fact, sir," he said in a low voice.
"And you have told me that you suspected Miss Rider of defalcations?"
Again the pause and again the man nodded.
"Do you hear?" asked Lyne triumphantly.
"I hear," said Tarling quietly. "Now what do you wish me to do? Isn't
this a matter for the police? I mean the regular police."
Lyne frowned.
"The case has to be prepared first," he said. "I will give you full
particulars as to the girl's address and her habits, and it will be your
business to collect such information as will enable us to put the case in
the hands of Scotland Yard."
"I see," said Tarling and smiled again. Then he shook his head. "I'm
afraid I can't come into this case, Mr. Lyne."
"Can't come in?" said Lyne in astonishment. "Why not?"
"Because it's not my kind of job," said Tarling. "The first time I met
you I had a feeling that you were leading me to one of the biggest cases
I had ever undertaken. It shows you how one's instincts can lead one
astray," he smiled again, and picked up his hat.
"What do you mean? You're going to throw up a valuable client?"
"I don't know how valuable you're likely to be," said Tarling, "but at
the present moment the signs are not particularly encouraging. I tell you
I do not wish to be associated with this case, Mr. Lyne, and I think
there the matter can end."
"You don't think it's worth while, eh?" sneered Lyne. "Yet when I tell
you that I am prepared to give you a fee of five hundred guineas----"
"If you gave me a fee of five thousand guineas, or fifty thousand
guineas, I should still decline to be associated with this matter," said
Tarling, and his words had the metallic quality which precludes argument.
"At any rate, I am entitled to know why you will not take up this case.
Do you know the girl?" asked Lyne loudly.
"I have never met the lady and probably never shall," said Tarling. "I
only know that I will not be concerned with what is called in the United
States of America a 'frame up.'"
"Frame up?" repeated the other.
"A frame up. I dare say you know what it means--I will put the matter
more plainly and within your understanding. For some reason or other you
have a sudden grudge against a member of your staff. I read your face,
Mr. Lyne, and the weakness of your chin and the appetite of your mouth
suggest to me that you are not over scrupulous with the women who are in
your charge. I guess rather than know that you have been turned down with
a dull, sickening thud by a decent girl, and in your mortification you
are attempting to invent a charge which has no substance and no
foundation.
"Mr. Milburgh," he turned to the other, and again Mr. Milburgh ceased to
smile, "has his own reasons for complying with your wishes. He is your
subordinate, and moreover, the side threat of penal servitude for him if
he refuses has carried some weight."
Thornton Lyne's face was distorted with fury.
"I will take care that your behaviour is widely advertised," he said.
"You have brought a most monstrous charge against me, and I shall proceed
against you for slander. The truth is that you are not equal to the job I
intended giving you and you are finding an excuse for getting out."
"The truth is," replied Tarling, biting off the end of a cigar he had
taken from his pocket, "that my reputation is too good to be risked in
associating with such a dirty business as yours. I hate to be rude, and
I hate just as much to throw away good money. But I can't take good money
for bad work, Mr. Lyne, and if you will be advised by me, you will drop
this stupid scheme for vengeance which your hurt vanity has suggested--it
is the clumsiest kind of frame up that was ever invented--and also you
will go and apologise to the young lady, whom, I have no doubt, you have
grossly insulted."
He beckoned to his Chinese satellite and walked leisurely to the door.
Incoherent with rage, shaking in every limb with a weak man's sense of
his own impotence, Lyne watched him until the door was half-closed, then,
springing forward with a strangled cry, he wrenched the door open and
leapt at the detective.
Two hands gripped his arm and lifting him bodily back into the room,
pushed him down into a chair. A not unkindly face blinked down at him,
a face relieved from utter solemnity by the tiny laughter lines about
the eyes.
"Mr. Lyne," said the mocking voice of Tarling, "you are setting an awful
example to the criminal classes. It is a good job your convict friend is
in gaol."
Without another word he left the room.