o my honourable
relation."

"And left the pistol behind?" said Tarling again. "And Milburgh found
it!"

CHAPTER XX

MR. MILBURGH SEES IT THROUGH

Ling Chu's story was not difficult to believe. It was less difficult to
believe that he was lying. There is no inventor in the world so clever,
so circumstantial, so exact as to detail, as the Chinaman. He is a born
teller of stories and piecer together of circumstances that fit so
closely that it is difficult to see the joints. Yet the man had been
frank, straightforward, patently honest. He had even placed himself in
Tarling's power by his confession of his murderous intention.

Tarling could reconstruct the scene after the Chinaman had left. Milburgh
stumbling in in the dark, striking a match and discovering a wall plug
had been pulled away, reconnecting the lamp, and seeing to his amazement
a murderous-looking pistol on the desk. It was possible that Milburgh,
finding the pistol, had been deceived into believing that he had
overlooked it on his previous search.

But what had happened to the weapon between the moment that Ling Chu left
it on Thornton Lyne's private desk and when it was discovered in the
work-basket of Odette Rider in the flat at Carrymore Mansions? And what
had Milburgh been doing in the store by himself so late at night? And
more particularly, what had he been doing in Thornton Lyne's private
room? 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. He had been a globetrotter and had collected curios, and it was
only natural that he should collect these slips of paper, which were on
sale in most of the big Chinese towns as a souvenir of the predatory
methods of the "Cheerful Hearts."

His conversation with Ling Chu would have to be reported to Scotland
Yard, and that august institution would draw its own conclusions. In all
probability they would be most unfavourable to Ling Chu, who would come
immediately under suspicion.

Tarling, however, was satisfied--or perhaps it would be more accurate to
say inclined to be satisfied--with his retainer's statement. Some of his
story was susceptible to verification