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Updated: June 10, 2025
Never before had Sam shown such gratitude; and never before had Thornton Lyne been less disinterested in his attentions. There was a hot bath which Sam Stay could have dispensed with, but which, out of sheer politeness, he was compelled to accept, a warm and luxurious breakfast; a new suit of clothes, with not two, but four, five-pound notes in the pocket. After breakfast, Lyne had his talk.
This criminal, whose love for Thornton Lyne had, as Tarling suspected rightly, been responsible for his mental collapse, might have supplied a great deal of information as to the events which led up to the day of the murder, and his dramatic breakdown had removed a witness who might have offered material assistance to the police.
The new doctor, Maurice Dale, young as he looked, was clever. He had done wonders for Mrs. Bird, the rich old lady at Ocean View. He had performed a quite brilliant amputation on Tommy Lyne, the poor little boy who had been run down by a demon bicyclist. And then he was well born.
There was a criminal in London who was watched day and night. It was no new experience to Sam Stay to find an unconcerned-looking detective strolling along behind him; but for the first time in his life the burglar was neither disconcerted nor embarrassed by these attentions. The death of Thornton Lyne had been the most tragic blow which had ever overtaken him.
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."
Tarling remembered that when Lyne had spoken to Milburgh before, and had suggested that the girl had been guilty of some act of predation, Milburgh had been quick to deny the possibility. Now his manner was hostile to the girl indefinitely so, but sufficiently marked for Tarling to notice it. "Do you think that Miss Rider had any reason for running away?" asked the detective.
"'Oh, don thy silks and jewels fine, May Ellen's mother said, 'For hither comes the Lord of Lyne And thou this lord must wed. May Ellen said, 'It may not be. He ne'er shall find his wife in me. "Up spoke her brother, dark and grim: 'Now by the bright blue sky, E'er yet a day hath gone for him Thy wicked bird shall die! For he hath wrought thee bitter harm, By some strange art or cunning charm.
Suppose the doctors were wrong and Thornton Lyne was murdered at an earlier hour? Suppose Odette Rider was in reality a cold-blooded . He growled away the thought. He heard the church clock strike the hour of two and waited impatiently for the quarter to chime he had heard every quarter since he had retired to bed. But he did not hear that quarter.
"That is undoubtedly my pistol, and it is the same that was found in Miss Rider's room at Carrymore Mansions, and I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that it was by a shot fired from this weapon that Thornton Lyne lost his life." There was a long silence. "Well, that beats me," said Whiteside, laying the weapon on the table. "At every turn some new mystery arises.
Twice had Sam gone down for a short term, and once for a long term of imprisonment, and on each occasion Thornton Lyne had made a parade of collecting the returned wanderer, driving him home, giving him breakfast and a great deal of worldly and unnecessary advice, and launching him forth again upon the world with ten pounds a sum just sufficient to buy Sam a new kit of burglar's tools.
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