CHAPTER XXXIII
LING CHU--TORTURER
Much had happened to Mr. Milburgh between the time of his discovery lyingbound and helpless and showing evidence that he had been in the hands ofa Chinese torturer and the moment he left Sam Stay. He had read of themurder, and had been shocked, and, in his way, grieved.
It was not to save Odette Rider that he sent his note to Scotland Yard,but rather to avenge himself upon the man who had killed the only womanin the world who had touched his warped nature. Nor had he any intentionof committing suicide. He had the passports which he had secured a yearbefore in readiness for such a step (he had kept that clerical uniform ofhis by him all that time) and was ready at a moment's notice to leave thecountry.
His tickets were in his pocket, and when he despatched the districtmessenger to Scotland Yard he was on his way to Waterloo station to catchthe Havre boat train. The police, he knew, would be watching the station,but he had no fear that they would discover beneath the benign exteriorof a country clergyman, the wanted manager of Lyne's Store, evensupposing that there was a warrant out for his arrest.
He was standing at a bookstall, purchasing literature to while away thehours of the journey, when he felt a hand laid on his arm and experienceda curious sinking sensation. He turned to look into a brown mask of aface he had seen before.
"Well, my man," he asked with a smile, "what can I do for you?"
He had asked the question in identical terms of Sam Stay--his brain toldhim that much, mechanically.
"You will come with me, Mr. Milburgh," said Ling Chu. "It will be betterfor you if you do not make any trouble."
"You are making a mistake."
"If I am making a mistake," said Ling Chu calmly, "you have only to tellthat policeman that I have mistaken you for Milburgh, who is wanted bythe police on a charge of murder, and I shall get into very serioustrouble."
Milburgh's lips were quivering with fear and his face was a pasty grey.
"I will come," he said.
Ling Chu walked by his side, and they passed out of Waterloo station. Thejourney to Bond Street remained in Milburgh's memory like a horribledream. He was not used to travelling on omnibuses, being something ofa sybarite who spared nothing to ensure his own comfort. Ling Chu on thecontrary had a penchant for buses and seemed to enjoy them.
No word was spoken until they reached the sitting-room of Tarling's flat.Milburgh expected to see the detective. He had already arrived at theconclusion that Ling Chu was but a messenger who had been sent by the manfrom Shanghai to bring him to his presence. But there was no sign ofTarling.
"Now, my friend, what do you want?" he asked. "It is true I am Mr.Milburgh, but when you say that I have committed murder you are tellinga wicked lie."
He had gained some courage, because he had expected in the first place tobe taken immediately to Scotland Yard and placed in custody. The factthat Tarling's flat lay at the end of the journey seemed to suggest thatthe situation was not as desperate as he had imagined.
Ling Chu, turning suddenly upon Milburgh, gripped him by the wrist,half-turning as he did so. Before Milburgh knew what was happening, hewas lying on the floor, face downwards, with Ling Chu's knee in the smallof his back. He felt something like a wire loop slipped about his wrists,and suffered an excruciating pain as the Chinaman tightened theconnecting link of the native handcuff.
"Get up," said Ling Chu sternly, and, exerting a surprising strength,lifted the man to his feet.
"What are you going to do?" said Milburgh, his teeth chattering withfear.
There was no answer. Ling Chu gripped the man by one hand and opening thedoor with the other, pushed him into a room which was barely furnished.Against the wall there was an iron bed, and on to this the man waspushed, collapsing in a heap.
The Chinese thief-catcher went about his work in a scientific fashion.First he fastened and threaded a length of silk rope through one of therails of the bed and into the slack of this he lifted Milburgh's head, sothat he could not struggle except at the risk of being strangled.
Ling Chu turned him over, unfastened the handcuffs, and methodicallybound first one wrist and then the other to the side of the bed.
"What are you going to do?" repeated Milburgh, but the Chinaman made noreply.
He produced from a belt beneath his blouse a wicked-looking knife, andthe manager opened his mouth to shout. He was beside himself with terror,but any cause for fear had yet to come. The Chinaman stopped the cry bydropping a pillow on the man's face, and began deliberately to cut theclothing on the upper part of his body.
"If you cry out," he said calmly, "the people will think it is I who amsinging! Chinamen have no music in their voices, and sometimes when Ihave sung my native songs, people have come up to discover who wassuffering."
"You are acting illegally," breathed Milburgh, in a last attempt to savethe situation. "For your crime you will suffer imprisonment"
"I shall be fortunate," said Ling Chu; "for prison is life. But you willhang at the end of a long rope."
He had lifted the pillow from Milburgh's face, and now that pallid manwas following every movement of the Chinaman with a fearful eye.Presently Milburgh was stripped to the waist, and Ling Chu regarded hishandiwork complacently.
He went to a cupboard in the wall, and took out a small brown bottle,which he placed on a table by the side of the bed. Then he himself satupon the edge of the bed and spoke. His English was almost perfect,though now and again he hesitated in the choice of a word, and there weremoments when he was a little stilted in his speech, and more than alittle pedantic. He spoke slowly and with great deliberation.
"You do not know the Chinese people? You have not been or lived in China?When I say lived I do not mean staying for a week at a good hotel in oneof the coast towns. Your Mr. Lyne lived in China in that way. It was nota successful residence."
"I know nothing about Mr. Lyne," interrupted Milburgh, sensing that LingChu in some way associated him with Thornton Lyne's misadventures.
"Good!" said Ling Chu, tapping the flat blade of his knife upon his palm."If you had lived in China--in the real China--you might have a dim ideaof our people and their characteristics. It is said that the Chinamandoes not fear death or pain, which is a slight exaggeration, because Ihave known criminals who feared both."
His thin lips curved for a second in the ghost of a smile, as though atsome amusing recollection. Then he grew serious again.
"From the Western standpoint we are a primitive people. From our ownpoint of view we are rigidly honourable. Also--and this I wouldemphasise." He did, in fact, emphasise his words to the terror ofMr. Milburgh, with the point of his knife upon the other's broad chest,though so lightly was the knife held that Milburgh felt nothing but theslightest tingle.
"We do not set the same value upon the rights of the individual as do youpeople in the West. For example," he explained carefully, "we are nottender with our prisoners, if we think that by applying a little pressureto them we can assist the process of justice."
"What do you mean?" asked Milburgh, a grisly thought dawning upon hismind.
"In Britain--and in America too, I understand--though the Americans aremuch more enlightened on this subject--when you arrest a member of a gangyou are content with cross-examining him and giving him full scope forthe exercise of his inventive power. You ask him questions and go onasking and asking, and you do not know whether he is lying or telling thetruth."
Mr. Milburgh began to breathe heavily.
"Has that idea sunk into your mind?" asked Ling Chu.
"I don't know what you mean," said Mr. Milburgh in a quavering voice."All I know is that you are committing a most----"
Ling Chu stopped him with a gesture.
"I am perfectly well aware of what I am doing," he said. "Now listen tome. A week or so ago, Mr. Thornton Lyne, your employer, was found deadin Hyde Park. He was dressed in his shirt and trousers, and about hisbody, in an endeavour to stanch the wound, somebody had wrapped a silk
night-dress. He was killed in the flat of a small lady, whose name Icannot pronounce, but you will know her."
Milburgh's eyes never left the Chinaman's, and he nodded.
"He was killed by you," said Ling Chu slowly, "because he had discoveredthat you had been robbing him, and you were in fear that he would handyou over to the police."
"That's a lie," roared Milburgh. "It's a lie--I tell you it's a lie!"
"I shall discover whether it is a lie in a few moments," said Ling Chu.
He put his hand inside his blouse and Milburgh watched him fascinated,but he produced nothing more deadly than a silver cigarette-case, whichhe opened. He selected a cigarette and lit it, and for a few minutespuffed in silence, his thoughtful eyes fixed upon Milburgh. Then he roseand went to the cupboard and took out a larger bottle and placed itbeside the other.
Ling Chu pulled again at his cigarette and then threw it into the grate.
"It is in the interests of all parties," he said in his slow, haltingway, "that the truth should be known, both for the sake of my honourablemaster, Lieh Jen, the Hunter, and his honourable Little Lady."
He took up his knife and bent over the terror-stricken man.
"For God's sake don't, don't," half screamed, half sobbed Milburgh.
"This will not hurt you," said Ling Chu, and drew four straight linesacross the other's breast. The keen razor edge seemed scarcely to touchthe flesh, yet where the knife had passed was a thin red mark like ascratch.
Milburgh scarcely felt a twinge of pain, only a mild irritating smartingand no more. The Chinaman laid down the knife and took up the smallerbottle.
"In this," he said, "is a vegetable extract. It is what you would callcapsicum, but it is not quite like your pepper because it is distilledfrom a native root. In this bottle," he picked up the larger, "is aChinese oil which immediately relieves the pain which capsicum causes."
"What are you going to do?" asked Milburgh, struggling. "You dog! Youfiend!"
"With a little brush I will paint capsicum on these places." He touchedMilburgh's chest with his long white ringers. "Little by little,millimetre by millimetre my brush will move, and you will experience suchpain as you have never experienced before. It is pain which will rack youfrom head to foot, and will remain with you all your life in memory.Sometimes," he said philosophically, "it drives me mad, but I do notthink it will drive you mad."
He took out the cork and dipped a little camel-hair brush in the mixture,withdrawing it moist with fluid. He was watching Milburgh all the time,and when the stout man opened his mouth to yell he thrust a silkhandkerchief, which he drew with lightning speed from his pocket, intothe open mouth.
"Wait, wait!" gasped the muffled voice of Milburgh. "I have something totell you--something that your master should know."
"That is very good," said Ling Chu coolly, and pulled out thehandkerchief. "You shall tell me the truth."
"What truth can I tell you?" asked the man, sweating with fear. Greatbeads of sweat were lying on his face.
"You shall confess the truth that you killed Thornton Lyne," said LingChu. "That is the only truth I want to hear."
"I swear I did not kill him! I swear it, I swear it!" raved the prisoner."Wait, wait!" he whimpered as the other picked up the handkerchief. "Doyou know what has happened to Miss Rider?"
The Chinaman checked his movement.
"To Miss Rider?" he said quickly. (He pronounced the word "Lider.")
Brokenly, gaspingly, breathlessly, Milburgh told the story of his meetingwith Sam Stay. In his distress and mental anguish he reproducedfaithfully not only every word, but every intonation, and the Chinamanlistened with half-closed eyes. Then, when Milburgh had finished, he putdown his bottle and thrust in the cork.
"My master would wish that the little woman should escape danger,"he said. "To-night he does not return, so I must go myself to thehospital--you can wait."
"Let me go," said Milburgh. "I will help you."
Ling Chu shook his head.
"You can wait," he said with a sinister smile. "I will go first to thehospital and afterwards, if all is well, I will return for you."
He took a clean white towel from the dressing-table and laid it over hisvictim's face. Upon the towel he sprinkled the contents of a third bottlewhich he took from the cupboard, and Milburgh remembered no more until helooked up into the puzzled face of Tarling an hour later.