Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
Here was a facer for Tarling, but he betrayed no sign either of disappointment or surprise. Milburgh was frowning as though he were attempting to piece together some half-forgotten recollection. "Is it possible," he said in a shocked voice, "that when you examined my house the other day it was with the object of discovering such a weapon as this!"
"Burglar alarm," said Tarling laconically, and pushed back the catch, threw up the window, and stepped into the little room where he had interviewed Mr. Milburgh. The house was empty. They went from room to room, searching the bureaux and cupboards. In one of these Tarling made a discovery. It was no more than a few glittering specks which he swept from a shelf into the palm of his hand.
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.
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.
Tarling, allow me to congratulate you upon being a thought-reader," said Milburgh, "because I have not revealed my secret thoughts to any human being. However, that is beside the point. I intended to plead with Mr. Lyne.
"It was probably your disreputable step-father did this. He may have lost his key." "He could have gone in the front door," said the girl uneasily. "Well, I'll go first," said Tarling with a cheerfulness which he was far from feeling. He went upstairs, his lamp in one hand, an automatic pistol in the other. The stairs ended in a balustraded landing from which two doors opened.
That suspicion should attach to him was, he told himself, poetic justice, for in his day he himself had suspected many men, innocent or partly innocent. He walked up the stairs to his room and found Ling Chu polishing the meagre stock of silver which Tarling possessed.
"I went back to the roof quickly for fear I should be discovered and it should bring dishonour to you." Tarling whistled. "And left the pistol behind?" he said. "That is nothing but the truth," said Ling Chu. "I have dishonoured myself in your eyes, and in my heart I am a murderer, for I went to that place to kill the man who had brought shame to me and to my honourable relation."
It came in a flash to Tarling that the man who had thrown the bottle of vitriol at him, who had said he had kept it for years was Sam Stay. Stay, with his scheme for blasting the woman who, he believed, had humiliated his beloved patron. And now for Milburgh, the last link in the chain.
He greeted Tarling effusively, and pushed an arm-chair forward and produced a box of cigars. "We're in rather a turmoil and upset now, Mr. Tarling," he said in his ingratiating voice, with that set smile of his which never seemed to leave his face. "The auditors or rather I should say the accountants have taken away all the books, and of course that imposes a terrible strain on me, Mr. Tarling.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking