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Updated: June 12, 2025
"As we always revert to Milburgh," groaned Tarling. "Yes?" "Well, I don't like his assurance," said Whiteside. "It looks as if all our hopes of getting a clue from the examination of Lyne's accounts are fated to be dashed." "There's something in that," said Tarling. "I don't like it myself.
It was unlikely that Lyne would leave his desk unlocked, and the only inference to be drawn was that Milburgh had unlocked it himself with the object of searching its contents. And the Hong? Those sinister little squares of red paper with the Chinese characters, one of which had been found in Thornton Lyne's pocket? The explanation of their presence in Thornton Lyne's desk was simple.
Mary Axe and boarded a westward-bound omnibus. The case abounded in these culs-de-sac which seemed to lead nowhere. Cul-de-sac No. 1 had been supplied by Odette Rider; cul-de-sac No. 2 might very easily lead to the dead end of Milburgh's innocence. He felt a sense of relief, however, that the authorities had acted so promptly in impounding Lyne's books.
He was a store-keeper because store-keeping supplied him with caviare and peaches, a handsome little two-seater, a six-cylinder limousine for state occasions, a country house and a flat in town, the decorations of which ran to a figure which would have purchased many stores of humbler pretensions than Lyne's Serve First Emporium.
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.
Again Milburgh hesitated, and seemed reluctant to reply. "I am, of course, in control," he said, "as I was when Mr. Lyne took his trip around the world. I have received authority also from Mr. Lyne's solicitors to continue the direction of the business until the Court appoints a trustee." Tarling eyed him narrowly. "What effect has this murder had upon you personally?" he asked bluntly.
"I left his house about nine o'clock at night, telling him I was going back to my lodgings. But really I went to the block of flats in the Edgware Road where this girl Rider lived. I knew the flat because I had been there the night before at Mr. Lyne's suggestion to plant some jewellery which had been taken from the store. His idea was that he would pinch her for theft.
It pleased him to believe that his face was cast in an intellectual mould, and that the somewhat unhealthy pastiness of his skin might be described as the "pallor of thought." Presently he looked away from her through the big bay window which overlooked the crowded floor of Lyne's Stores.
"What have you against her?" he said, with an assumption of carelessness which he did not feel. "Nothing definite," said the Commissioner. "Her principal accuser is the man Stay. Even he did not accuse her directly, but he hinted that she was responsible, in some way which he did not particularise, for Thornton Lyne's death.
"On Mr. Lyne's desk," was the surprising answer "On Lyne's desk?" Milburgh nodded. "The late Mr. Thornton Lyne," he said, "came back from the East with a great number of curios, and amongst them were a number of slips of paper covered with Chinese characters similar to this. I do not understand Chinese," he said, "because I have never had occasion to go to China.
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