“Quick,” said Tarling sharply, “Miss Rider has fainted again.”
They carried her into the drawingroom and laid her on the couch, and Tarling did not leave her until he had seen her in the hands of two women servants.
He went back with the butler to the room where the body lay. He turned on all the lights and made a careful scrutiny of the room. The window leading on to the glass-covered balcony where he had been concealed a few hours before, was latched, locked and bolted.
The curtains, which had been drawn, presumably by Milburgh when he came for the wallet, were undisturbed. From the position in which the dead woman lay and the calm on her face he thought death must have come instantly and unexpectedly. Probably the murderer stole behind her whilst she was standing at the foot of the sofa which he had partly seen through the window. It was likely that, to beguile the time of waiting for her daughter’s return, she had taken a book from a little cabinet immediately behind the door, and support for this theory came in the shape of a book which had evidently fallen out of her hand between the position in which she was found and the bookcase.
Together the two men lifted the body on to the sofa.
“You had better go down into the town and inform the police,” said Tarling. “Is there a telephone here?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the butler.
“Good, that will save you a journey,” said the detective.
He notified the local police officials and then got on to Scotland Yard and sent a messenger to arouse Whiteside. The faint pallor of dawn was in the sky when he looked out of the window, but the pale light merely served to emphasise the pitch darkness of the world.
He examined the knife, which had the appearance of being a very ordinary butcher’s knife. There were some faint initials burnt upon the hilt, but these had been so worn by constant handling that there was only the faintest trace of what they had originally been. He could see an “M” and two other letters that looked like “C” and “A.”
“M.C.A.?”
He puzzled his brain to interpret the initials. Presently the butler came back.
“The young lady is in a terrible state, sir, and I have sent for Dr. Thomas.”
Tarling nodded.
“You have done very wisely,” he said. “Poor girl, she has had a terrible shock.”
Again he went to the telephone, and this time he got into connection with a nursing home in London and arranged for an ambulance to pick up the girl without further delay. When he had telephoned to Scotland Yard he had asked as an afterthought that a messenger should be sent to Ling Chu, instructing him to come without delay. He had the greatest faith in the Chinaman, particularly in a case like this where the trail was fresh, for Ling Chu was possessed of superhuman gifts which only the bloodhound could rival.
“Nobody must go upstairs,” he instructed the butler. “When the doctor and the coroner’s officer come, they must be admitted by the principal entrance, and if I am not here, you must understand that under no circumstances are those stairs leading to the portico to be used.”
He himself went out of the main entrance to make a tour of the grounds. He had little hope that that search would lead to anything. Clues there might be in plenty when the daylight revealed them, but the likelihood of the murderer remaining in the vicinity of the scene of his crime was a remote one.
The grounds were extensive and well-wooded. Numerous winding paths met, and forked aimlessly, radiating out from the broad gravel paths about the house to the high walls which encircled the little estate.
In one corner of the grounds was a fairly large patch, innocent of bush and offering no cover at all. He made a casual survey of this, sweeping his light across the ordered rows of growing vegetables, and was going away when he saw a black bulk which had the appearance, even in the darkness, of a gardener’s house. He swept this possible cover with his lamp.
Was his imagination playing him a trick, or had he caught the briefest glimpse of a white face peering round the corner? He put on his light again. There was nothing visible. He walked to the building and round it. There was nobody in sight. He thought he saw a dark form under the shadow of the building moving towards the belt of pines which surrounded the house on the three sides. He put on his lamp again, but the light was not powerful enough to carry the distance required, and he went forward at a jog trot in the direction he had seen the figure disappear. He reached the pines and went softly. Every now and again he stopped, and once he could have sworn he heard the cracking of a twig ahead of him.
He started off at a run in pursuit, and now there was no mistaking the fact that somebody was still in the wood. He heard the quick steps of his quarry and then there was silence. He ran on, but must have overshot the mark, for presently he heard a stealthy noise behind him. In a flash he turned back.
“Who are you?” he said. “Stand out or I’ll fire!”
There was no answer and he waited. He heard the scraping of a boot against the brickwork and he knew that the intruder was climbing the wall. He turned in the direction of the sound, but again found nothing.
Then from somewhere above him came such a trill of demoniacal laughter as chilled his blood. The top of the wall was concealed by the overhanging branch of a tree and his light was valueless.
“Come down,” he shouted, “I’ve got you covered!”
Again came that terrible laugh, half-fear, half-derision, and a voice shrill and harsh came down to him.
“Murderer! Murderer! You killed Thornton Lyne, damn you! I’ve kept this for you — take it!”
Something came crashing through the trees, something small and round, a splashing drop, as of water, fell on the back of Tarling’s hand and he shook it off with a cry, for it burnt like fire. He heard the mysterious stranger drop from the coping of the wall and the sound of his swift feet. He stooped and picked up the article which had been thrown at him. It was a small bottle bearing a stained chemist’s label and the word “Vitriol.”
XXVIII. The Thumb-Print
It was ten o’clock in the morning, and Whiteside and Tarling were sitting on a sofa in their shirtsleeves, sipping their coffee. Tarling was haggard and weary, in contrast to the dapper inspector of police. Though the latter had been aroused from his bed in the early hours of the morning, he at least had enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
They sat in the room in which Mrs. Rider had been murdered, and the rusty brown stains on the floor where Tarling had found her were eloquent of the tragedy.
They sat sipping their coffee, neither man talking, and they maintained this silence for several minutes, each man following his own train of thought. Tarling for reasons of his own had not revealed his own adventure and he had told the other nothing of the mysterious individual (who he was, he pretty well guessed) whom he had chased through the grounds.
Presently Whiteside lit a cigarette and threw the match in the grate, and Tarling roused himself from his reverie with a jerk.
“What do you make of it?” he asked.
Whiteside shook his head.
“If there had been property taken, it would have had a simple explanation. But nothing has gone. Poor girl!”
Tarling nodded.
“Terrible!” he said. “The doctor had to drug her before he could get her to go.”
“Where is she?” asked Whiteside
“I sent her on an ambulance to a nursing-home in London,”