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Canvey Cottage, as it was called, stood back from the road, behind a lawn, innocent of flowers, and the lawn itself was protected from intrusion by high iron railings which Mr. Milburgh's landlord had had erected at considerable cost. To reach the house it was necessary to pass through an iron gate and traverse a stone-flagged path to the door of the cottage.
Those shots in the foggy night which had nearly ended the career of Jack Tarling had their explanation in Milburgh's terror of exposure. One person in the world, one living person, could place him in the felon's dock, and if she betrayed him Tarling had carried the girl to a couch and had laid her down. He went quickly into his bedroom, switching on the light, to get a glass of water.
"If I am making a mistake," said Ling Chu calmly, "you have only to tell that policeman that I have mistaken you for Milburgh, who is wanted by the police on a charge of murder, and I shall get into very serious trouble." Milburgh's lips were quivering with fear and his face was a pasty grey. "I will come," he said. Ling Chu walked by his side, and they passed out of Waterloo station.
Milburgh shrugged his shoulders. "In this world," he said unctuously, "one is constantly being deceived by people in whom one has put one's trust." "In other words, you suspect Miss Rider of robbing the firm?" Up went Mr. Milburgh's plump hands. "I would not say that," he said.
Tarling had made a careful examination of the cuts on his chest, and was relieved to discover that Ling Chu he did not doubt that the Chinaman was responsible for Milburgh's plight had not yet employed that terrible torture which had so often brought Chinese criminals to the verge of madness.
I am obliged to bring it home, and I can assure you, Mr. Tarling, that there are some nights when I work till daylight, getting things ready for the auditor." "Do you ever take exercise?" asked Tarling innocently. "Little night walks in the fog for the benefit of your health?" A puzzled frown gathered on Milburgh's face. "Exercise, Mr. Tarling?" he said with an air of mystification.
The other looked at him in surprise. "Love?" he repeated incredulously, and Tarling: nodded. "Undoubtedly Sam Stay adored Lyne. It was the shock of his death which drove him mad." Whiteside drummed his fingers on the table, thoughtfully. "What do you think of Milburgh's story?" he asked, and Tarling shrugged his shoulders. "It is most difficult to form a judgment," he said.
He walked back to the front of the shop, passed the huge plate-glass windows, fringed now with shoppers with whom Lyne's Store had acquired a new and morbid interest, and through the big swinging doors on to the crowded floor. Mr. Milburgh was in his office, said a shop-walker, and led the way. Mr. Milburgh's office was much larger and less ornate than his late employer's.
From the cupboard he took a dozen little books and carried them to the table. They were of uniform size and each bore the figures of a year. They appeared to be, and indeed were, diaries, but they were not Mr. Milburgh's diaries. One day he chanced to go into Thornton Lyne's room at the Stores and had seen these books arrayed on a steel shelf of Lyne's private safe.
"You are acting illegally," breathed Milburgh, in a last attempt to save the situation. "For your crime you will suffer imprisonment" "I shall be fortunate," said Ling Chu; "for prison is life. But you will hang at the end of a long rope." He had lifted the pillow from Milburgh's face, and now that pallid man was following every movement of the Chinaman with a fearful eye.
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