FOUND IN LYNE'S POCKET
"The London police are confronted with a new mystery, which has features
so remarkable, that it would not be an exaggeration to describe this
crime as the Murder Mystery of the Century. A well-known figure in London
Society, Mr. Thornton Lyne, head of an important commercial organisation,
a poet of no mean quality, and a millionaire renowned for his
philanthropic activities, was found dead in Hyde Park in the early hours
of this morning, in circumstances which admit of no doubt that he was
most brutally murdered.
"At half-past five, Thomas Savage, a bricklayer's labourer employed by
the Cubitt Town Construction Company, was making his way across Hyde Park
_en route_ to his work. He had crossed the main drive which runs parallel
with the Bayswater Road, when his attention was attracted to a figure
lying on the grass near to the sidewalk. He made his way to the spot and
discovered a man, who had obviously been dead for some hours. The body
had neither coat nor waistcoat, but about the breast, on which his two
hands were laid, was a silk garment tightly wound about the body, and
obviously designed to stanch a wound on the left side above the heart.
"The extraordinary feature is that the murderer must not only have
composed the body, but had laid upon its breast a handful of daffodils.
The police were immediately summoned and the body was removed. The police
theory is that the murder was not committed in Hyde Park, but the
unfortunate gentleman was killed elsewhere and his body conveyed to the
Park in his own motor-car, which was found abandoned a hundred yards from
the scene of the discovery. We understand that the police are working
upon a very important clue, and an arrest is imminent."
Mr. J. O. Tarling, late of the Shanghai Detective Service, read the short
account in the evening newspaper, and was unusually thoughtful.
Lyne murdered! It was an extraordinary coincidence that he had been
brought into touch with this young man only a few days before.
Tarling knew nothing of Lyne's private life, though from his own
knowledge of the man during his short stay in Shanghai, he guessed that
that life was not wholly blameless. He had been too busy in China to
bother his head about the vagaries of a tourist, but he remembered dimly
some sort of scandal which had attached to the visitor's name, and
puzzled his head to recall all the circumstances.
He put down the newspaper with a little grimace indicative of regret. If
he had only been attached to Scotland Yard, what a case this would have
been for him! Here was a mystery which promised unusual interest.
His mind wandered to the girl, Odette Rider. What would she think of it?
She would be shocked, he thought--horrified. It hurt him to feel that she
might be indirectly, even remotely associated with such a public scandal,
and he realised with a sudden sense of dismay that nothing was less
unlikely than that her name would be mentioned as one who had quarrelled
with the dead man.
"Pshaw!" he muttered, shrugging off the possibility as absurd, and,
walking to the door, called his Chinese servant.
Ling Chu came silently at his bidding.
"Ling Chu," he said, "the white-faced man is dead."
Ling Chu raised his imperturbable eyes to his master's face.
"All men die some time," he said calmly. "This man quick die. That is
better than long die."
Tarling looked at him sharply.
"How do you know that he quick die?" he demanded.
"These things are talked about," said Ling Chu without hesitation.
"But not in the Chinese language," replied Tarling, "and, Ling Chu, you
speak no English."
"I speak a little, master," said Ling Chu, "and I have heard these things
in the streets."
Tarling did not answer immediately, and the Chinaman waited.
"Ling Chu," he said after awhile, "this man came to Shanghai whilst we
were there, and there was trouble-trouble. Once he was thrown out from
Wing Fu's tea-house, where he had been smoking opium. Also there was
another trouble--do you remember?"
The Chinaman looked him straight in the eyes.
"I am forgetting," he said. "This white-face was a bad man. I am glad he
is dead."
"Humph!" said Tarling, and dismissed his retainer.
Ling Chu was the cleverest of all his sleuths, a man who never lifted his
nose from the trail once it was struck, and he had been the most loyal
and faithful of Tarling's native trailers. But the detective never
pretended that he understood Ling Chu's mind, or that he could pierce the
veil which the native dropped between his own private thoughts and the
curious foreigner. Even native criminals were baffled in their
interpretation of Ling Chu's views, and many a man had gone to the
scaffold puzzling the head, which was soon to be snicked from his body,
over the method by which Ling Chu had detected his crime.
Tarling went back to the table and picked up the newspaper, but had
hardly begun to read when the telephone bell rang. He picked up the
receiver and listened. To his amazement it was the voice of Cresswell,
the Assistant Commissioner of Police, who had been instrumental in
persuading Tarling to come to England.
"Can you come round to the Yard immediately, Tarling?" said the voice. "I
want to talk to you about this murder."
"Surely," said Tarling. "I'll be with you in a few minutes."
In five minutes he was at Scotland Yard and was ushered into the office
of Assistant Commissioner Cresswell. The white-haired man who came across
to meet him with a smile of pleasure in his eyes disclosed the object of
the summons.
"I'm going to bring you into this case, Tarling," he said. "It has
certain aspects which seem outside the humdrum experience of our own
people. It is not unusual, as you know," he said, as he motioned the
other to a chair, "for Scotland Yard to engage outside help, particularly
when we have a crime of this character to deal with. The facts you know,"
he went on, as he opened a thin folder. "These are the reports, which you
can read at your leisure. Thornton Lyne was, to say the least, eccentric.
His life was not a particularly wholesome one, and he had many
undesirable acquaintances, amongst whom was a criminal and ex-convict
who was only released from gaol a few days ago."
"That's rather extraordinary," said Tarling, lifting his eyebrows. "What
had he in common with the criminal?"
Commissioner Cresswell shrugged his shoulders.
"My own view is that this acquaintance was rather a pose of Lyne's. He
liked to be talked about. It gave him a certain reputation for character
amongst his friends."
"Who is the criminal?" asked Tarling.
"He is a man named Stay, a petty larcenist, and in my opinion a much more
dangerous character than the police have realised."
"Is he----" began Tarling. But the Commissioner shook his head.
"I think we can rule him out from the list of people who may be suspected
of this murder," he said. "Sam Stay has very few qualities that would
commend themselves to the average man, but there can be no doubt at all
that he was devoted to Lyne, body and soul. When the detective
temporarily in charge of the case went down to Lambeth to interview Stay,
he found him lying on his bed prostrate with grief, with a newspaper
containing the particulars of the murder by his side. The man is beside
himself with sorrow, and threatens to 'do in' the person who is
responsible for this crime. You can interview him later. I doubt whether
you will get much out of him, because he is absolutely incoherent. Lyne
was something more than human in his eyes, and I should imagine that the
only decent emotion he has had in his life is this affection for a man
who was certainly good to him, whether he was sincere in his philanthropy
or otherwise. Now here are a few of the facts which have not been made
public." Cresswell settled himself back in his chair and ticked off on
his fingers the points as he made them.
"You know that around Lyne's chest a silk night-dress was discovered?"
Tarling nodded.
"Under the night-dress, made into a pad, evidently with the object of
arresting the bleeding, were two handkerchiefs, neatly folded, as though
they had been taken from a drawer. They were ladies' handkerchiefs, so we
may start on the supposition that there is a woman in the case."
Tarling nodded.
"Now another peculiar feature of the case, which happily has escaped the
attention of those who saw the body first and gave particulars to the
newspapers, was that Lyne, though fully dressed, wore a pair of thick
felt slippers. They were taken out of his own store yesterday evening, as
we have ascertained, by Lyne himself, who sent for one of his assistants
to his office and told him to get a pair of very soft-soled slippers.
"The third item is that Lyne's boots were discovered in the deserted
motor-car which was drawn up by the side of the road a hundred yards from
where the body was lying.
"And the fourth feature--and this explains why I have brought you into
the case--is that in the car was discovered his bloodstained coat and
waistcoat. In the right-hand pocket of the latter garment," said
Cresswell, speaking slowly, "was found this." He took from his drawer a
small piece of crimson paper two inches square, and handed it without
comment to the detective.
Tarling took the paper and stared. Written in thick black ink were four
Chinese characters, "_tzu chao fan nao_"--"He brought this trouble
upon himself."