he had shot his employer dead? There was a flaw in this
reasoning because the death of Thornton Lyne would be more likely to
precipitate the discovery of the manager's embezzlements--there would
be an examination of accounts and everything would come out. Milburgh
himself was not unmindful of this argument in his favour, as was to be
revealed.

As against this, Tarling thought, it was notorious that criminals did
foolish things. They took little or no account of the immediate
consequences of their act, and a man like Milburgh, in his desperation,
might in his very frenzy overlook the possibility of his crime coming to
light through the very deed he had committed to cover himself up.

He had reached the bottom of Edgware Road and was turning the corner of
the street, looking across to the Marble Arch, when he heard a voice hail
him and turning, saw a cab breaking violently to the edge of the
pavement.

It was Inspector Whiteside who jumped out.

"I was just coming to see you," he said. "I thought your interview with
the young lady would be longer. Just wait a moment, till I've paid the
cabman--by-the-way, I saw your Chink servant and gather you sent him to
the Yard on a spoof errand."

When he returned, he met Tarling's eye and grinned sympathetically.

"I know what's in your mind," he said frankly, "but really the Chief
thinks it no more than an extraordinary coincidence. I suppose you made
inquiries about your revolver?"

Tarling nodded.

"And can you discover how it came to be in the possession of----" he
paused, "the murderer of Thornton Lyne?"

"I have a theory, half-formed, it is true, but still a theory," said
Taxiing. "In fact, it's hardly so much a theory as an hypothesis."

Whiteside grinned again.

"This hair-splitting in the matter of logical terms never did mean much
in my young life," he said, "but I take it you have a hunch."

Without any more to-do, Tarling told the other of the discovery he had
made in Ling Chu's box, the press cuttings, descriptive of the late Mr.
Lyne's conduct in Shanghai and its tragic sequel.

Whiteside listened in silence.

"There may be something on that side," he said at last when Tarling had
finished. "I've heard about your Ling Chu. He's a pretty good policeman,
isn't he?"

"The best in China," said Tarling promptly, "but I'm not going to pretend
that I understand his mind. These are the facts. The revolver, or rather
the pistol, was in my cupboard and the o