The Daffodil Mystery

CHAPTER IV

MURDER

Jack Tarling lay stretched upon his hard bed, a long cigarette-holder between his teeth, a book on Chinese metaphysics balanced on his chest, at peace with the world. The hour was eight o'clock, and it was the day that Sam Stay had been released from gaol.

It had been a busy day for Tarling, for he was engaged in a bank fraud case which would have occupied the whole of his time had he not had a little private business to attend to. This private matter was wholly unprofitable, but his curiosity had been piqued.

He lay the book flat on his chest as the soft click of the opening door announced the coming of his retainer. The impassive Ling Chu came noiselessly into the room, carrying a tray, which he placed upon a low table by the side of his master's bed. The Chinaman wore a blue silk pyjama suit—a fact which Tarling noticed.

"You are not going out to-night then, Ling Chu?"

"No, Lieh Jen," said the man.

They both spoke in the soft, sibilant patois of Shantung.

"You have been to the Man with the Cunning Face?"

For answer the other took an envelope from an inside pocket and laid it in the other's hand. Tarling glanced at the address.

"So this is where the young lady lives, eh? Miss Odette Rider, 27, Carrymore Buildings, Edgware Road."

"It is a clan house, where many people live," said Ling Chu. "I myself went, in your honourable service, and saw people coming in and going out interminably, and never the same people did I see twice."

"It is what they call in English a 'flat building,' Ling," said Tarling with a little smile. "What did the Man with the Cunning Face say to my letter?"

"Master, he said nothing. He just read and read, and then he made a face like this." Ling gave an imitation of Mr. Milburgh's smile. "And then he wrote as you see."

Tarling nodded. He stared for a moment into vacancy, then he turned on his elbow and lifted the cup of tea which his servant had brought him.

"What of Face-White-and-Weak Man, Ling?" he asked in the vernacular. "You saw him?"

"I saw him, master," said the Chinaman gravely. "He is a man without a heaven."

Again Tarling nodded. The Chinese use the word "heaven" instead of "God," and he felt that Ling had very accurately sized up Mr. Thornton Lyne's lack of spiritual qualities.

He finished the tea, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Ling," he said, "this place is very dull and sad. I do not think I shall live here."

"Will the master go back to Shanghai?" asked the other, without any display of emotion.

"I think so," nodded Tarling. "At any rate, this place is too dull. Just miserable little taking-money-easily cases, and wife-husband-lover cases and my soul is sick."

"These are small matters," said Ling philosophically. "But The Master"—this time he spoke of the great Master, Confucius—"has said that all greatness comes from small things, and perhaps some small-piece man will cut off the head of some big-piece man, and then they will call you to find the murderer."

Tarling laughed.

"You're an optimist, Ling," he said. "No, I don't think they'll call me in for a murder. They don't call in private detectives in this country."

Ling shook his head.

"But the master must find murderers, or he will no longer be Lieh Jen, the Hunter of Men."

"You're a bloodthirsty soul, Ling," said Tarling, this time in English, which Ling imperfectly understood, despite the sustained efforts of eminent missionary schools. "Now I'll go out," he said with sudden resolution. "I am going to call upon the small-piece woman whom White-Face desires."

"May I come with you?" asked Ling.

Tarling hesitated.

"Yes, you may come," he said, "but you must trail me."

Carrymore Mansions is a great block of buildings sandwiched between two more aristocratic and more expensive blocks of flats in the Edgware Road. The ground floor is given up to lock-up shops which perhaps cheapened the building, but still it was a sufficiently exclusive habitation for the rents, as Tarling guessed, to be a little too high for a shop assistant, unless she were living with her family. The explanation, as he was to discover, lay in the fact that there were some very undesirable basement flats which were let at a lower rental.

He found himself standing outside the polished mahogany door of one of these, wondering exactly what excuse he was going to give to the girl for making a call so late at night. And that she needed some explanation was clear from the frank suspicion which showed in her face when she opened the door to him.

"Yes, I am Miss Rider," she said.

"Can I see you for a few moments?"

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head, "but I am alone in the flat, so I can't ask you to come in."

This was a bad beginning.

"Is it not possible for you to come out?" he asked anxiously, and in spite of herself, she smiled.

"I'm afraid it's quite impossible for me to go out with somebody I have never met before," she said, with just a trace of amusement in her eyes.

"I recognise the difficulty," laughed Tailing. "Here is one of my cards. I'm afraid I am not very famous in this country, so you will not know my name."

She took the card and read it.

"A private detective?" she said in a troubled voice. "Who has sent you? Not Mr.–"

"Not Mr. Lyne," he said.

She hesitated a moment, then threw open the door wider.

"You must come in. We can talk here in the hall. Do I understand Mr. Lyne has not sent you?"

"Mr. Lyne was very anxious that I should come," he said. "I am betraying his confidence, but I do not think that he has any claim upon my loyalty. I don't know why I've bothered you at all, except that I feel that you ought to be put on your guard."

"Against what?" she asked.

"Against the machinations of a gentleman to whom you have been–" he hesitated for a word.

"Very offensive," she finished for him.

"I don't know how offensive you've been," he laughed, "but I gather you have annoyed Mr. Lyne for some reason or other, and that he is determined to annoy you. I do not ask your confidence in this respect, because I realise that you would hardly like to tell me. But what I want to tell you is this, that Mr. Lyne is probably framing up a charge against you—that is to say, inventing a charge of theft."

"Of theft?" she cried in indignant amazement. "Against me? Of theft? It's impossible that he could be so wicked!"

"It's not impossible that anybody could be wicked," said Tarling of the impassive face and the laughing eyes. "All that I know is that he even induced Mr. Milburgh to say that complaints have been made by Milburgh concerning thefts of money from your department."

"That's absolutely impossible!" she cried emphatically. "Mr. Milburgh would never say such a thing. Absolutely impossible!"

"Mr. Milburgh didn't want to say such a thing, I give him credit for that," said Tarling slowly, and then gave the gist of the argument, omitting any reference, direct or indirect, to the suspicion which surrounded Milburgh.

"So you see," he said in conclusion, "that you ought to be on your guard. I suggest to you that you see a solicitor and put the matter in his hands. You need not move against Mr. Lyne, but it would strengthen your position tremendously if you had already detailed the scheme to some person in authority."

"Thank you very, very much, Mr. Tarling," she said warmly, and looked up into his face with a smile so sweet, so pathetic, so helpless, that Tarling's heart melted towards her.

"And if you don't want a solicitor," he said, "you can depend upon me. I will help you if any trouble arises."

"You don't know how grateful I am to you, Mr. Tarling, I didn't receive you very graciously!"

"If you will forgive my saying so, you would have been a fool to have received me in any other way," he said.

She held out both hands to him: he took them, and there were tears in her eyes. Presently she composed herself, and led him into her little drawing-room.

"Of course, I've lost my job," she laughed, "but I've had several offers, one of which I shall accept. I am going to have the rest of the week to myself and to take a holiday."

Tarling stopped her with a gesture. His ears were superhumanly sensitive.

"Are you expecting a visitor?" he asked softly.

"No," said the girl in surprise.

"Do you share this flat with somebody?"

"I have a woman who sleeps here," she said. "She is out for the evening."

"Has she a key?"

The girl shook her head.

The man rose, and Odette marvelled how one so tall could move so swiftly, and without so much as a sound, across the uncarpeted hallway. He reached the door, turned the knob of the patent lock and jerked it open. A man was standing on the mat and he jumped back at the unexpectedness of Tarling's appearance. The stranger was a cadaverous-looking man, in a brand-new suit of clothes, evidently ready-made, but he still wore on his face the curious yellow tinge which is the special mark of the recently liberated gaol-bird.

"Beg pardon," he stammered, "but is this No. 87?"

Tarling shot out a hand, and gripping him by the coat, drew the helpless man towards him.

"Hullo, what are you trying to do? What's this you have?"

He wrenched something from the man's hand. It was not a key but a flat-toothed instrument of strange construction.

"Come in," said Tarling, and jerked his prisoner into the hall.

A swift turning back of his prisoner's coat pinioned him, and then with dexterousness and in silence he proceeded to search. From two pockets he took a dozen jewelled rings, each bearing the tiny tag of Lyne's Store.

"Hullo!" said Tarling sarcastically, "are these intended as a loving gift from Mr. Lyne to Miss Rider?"

The man was speechless with rage. If looks could kill, Tarling would have died.

"A clumsy trick," said Tarling, shaking his head mournfully. "Now go back to your boss, Mr. Thornton Lyne, and tell him that I am ashamed of an intelligent man adopting so crude a method," and with a kick he dismissed Sam Stay to the outer darkness.

The girl, who had been a frightened spectator of the scene, turned her eyes imploringly upon the detective.

"What does it mean?" she pleaded. "I feel so frightened. What did that man want?"

"You need not be afraid of that man, or any other man," said Tarling briskly. "I'm sorry you were scared."

He succeeded in calming her by the time her servant had returned and then took his leave.

"Remember, I have given you my telephone number and you will call me up if there is any trouble. Particularly," he said emphatically, "if there is any trouble to-morrow."

But there was no trouble on the following day, though at three o'clock in the afternoon she called him up.

"I am going away to stay in the country," she said. "I got scared last night."

"Come and see me when you get back," said Tarling, who had found it difficult to dismiss the girl from his mind. "I am going to see Lyne to-morrow. By the way, the person who called last night is a protégé of Mr. Thornton Lyne's, a man who is devoted to him body and soul, and he's the fellow we've got to look after. By Jove! It almost gives me an interest in life!"

He heard the faint laugh of the girl.

"Must I be butchered to make a detective's holiday?" she mocked, and he grinned sympathetically.

"Any way, I'll see Lyne to-morrow," he said.

The interview which Jack Tarling projected was destined never to take place.

On the following morning, an early worker taking a short cut through Hyde Park, found the body of a man lying by the side of a carriage drive. He was fully dressed save that his coat and waistcoat had been removed. Wound about his body was a woman's silk night-dress stained with blood. The hands of the figure were crossed on the breast and upon them lay a handful of daffodils.

At eleven o'clock that morning the evening newspapers burst forth with the intelligence that the body had been identified as that of Thornton Lyne, and that he had been shot through the heart.

CHAPTER V

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.