THE FINGER PRINTS
Tarling, his hands thrust into his pockets, his chin dropped, his
shoulders bent, slowly walked the broad pavement of the Edgware Road on
his way from the girl's hotel to his flat. He dismissed with good reason
the not unimportant fact that he himself was suspect. He, a comparatively
unknown detective from Shanghai was by reason of his relationship to
Thornton Lyne, and even more so because his own revolver had been found
on the scene of the tragedy, the object of some suspicion on the part of
the higher authorities who certainly would not pooh-pooh the suggestion
that he was innocent of any association with the crime because he
happened to be engaged in the case.
He knew that the whole complex machinery of Scotland Yard was working,
and working at top speed, to implicate him in the tragedy. Silent and
invisible though that work may be, it would nevertheless be sure. He
smiled a little, and shrugged himself from the category of the suspected.
First and most important of the suspects was Odette Rider. That Thornton
Lyne had loved her, he did not for one moment imagine. Thornton Lyne was
not the kind of man who loved. Rather had he desired, and very few women
had thwarted him. Odette Rider was an exception. Tarling only knew of the
scene which had occurred between Lyne and the girl on the day he had been
called in, but there must have been many other painful interviews,
painful for the girl, humiliating for the dead millionaire.
Anyway, he thought thankfully, it would not be Odette. He had got into
the habit of thinking of her as "Odette," a discovery which had amused
him. He could rule her out, because obviously she could not be in two
places at once. When Thornton Lyne was discovered in Hyde Park, with
Odette Rider's night-dress round about his wound, the girl herself was
lying in a cottage hospital at Ashford fifty miles away.
But what of Milburgh, that suave and oily man? Tarling recalled the fact
that he had been sent for by his dead relative to inquire into Milburgh's
mode of living and that Milburgh was under suspicion of having robbed the
firm. Suppose Milburgh had committed the crime? Suppose, to hide his
defalcations, he had shot his employer dead? There was a flaw in this
reasoning because the death of Thornton Lyne would be more likely to
precipitate the discovery of the manager's embezzlements--there would
be an examination of accounts and everything would come out. Milburgh
himself was not unmindful of this argument in his favour, as was to be
revealed.
As 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
Tarling. "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 motor-car 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 shop-girl
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 remembered the scene for years afterwards; the sunlit path, the
straggling idlers, the carriages pursuing their leisurely way along the
walks, and the stiff military figure of Whiteside standing almost to
attention, his keen eyes peering down at the little cards which he held
in the finger-tips of both hands. Then:
"Interesting," he said. "You notice that the two figures are almost the
same--which is rather extraordinary. Very interesting."
"Well?" asked Tarling impatiently, almost savagely.
"Interesting," said Whiteside again, "but none of these correspond to the
thumb prints on the bureau."
"Thank God for that!" said Tarling fervently "Thank God for that!"