On their arrival at the Bond Street flat, Tarling opened the door and went upstairs, followed by the other. The flat was in darkness--an extraordinary circumstance, for it was an understood thing that Ling Chu should not leave the house whilst his master was out. And Ling Chu had undoubtedly left. The dining-room was empty. The first thing Tarling saw, when he turned on the light, was a strip of rice paper on which the ink was scarcely dry. Just half a dozen Chinese characters and no more. "If you return before I, learn that I go to find the little-little woman," read Tarling in astonishment. "Then he knows she's gone! Thank God for that!" he said. "I wonder----" He stopped. He thought he had heard a low moan, and catching the eye of Whiteside, he saw that the Scotland Yard man had detected the same sound. "Sounds like somebody groaning," he said. "Listen!" He bent his head and waited, and presently it came again. In two strides Tarling was at the door of Ling Chu's sleeping place, but it was locked. He stooped to the key-hole and listened, and again heard the moan. With a thrust of his shoulder he had broken the door open and dashed in. The sight that met his eyes was a remarkable one. There was a man lying on the bed, stripped to the waist. His hands and his legs were bound and a white cloth covered his face. But what Tarling saw before all else was that across the centre of the broad chest were four little red lines, which Tarling recognised. They were "persuaders," by which native Chinese policemen secretly extract confessions from unwilling criminals--light cuts with a sharp knife on the surface of the skin, and after---- He looked around for the "torture bottle," but it was not in sight. "Who is this?" he asked, and lifted the cloth from the man's face. It was Milburgh. CHAPTER XXXIII LING CHU--TORTURER Much had happened to Mr. Milburgh between the time of his discovery lying bound and helpless and showing evidence that he had been in the hands of a Chinese torturer and the moment he left Sam Stay. He had read of the murder, 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 woman in the world who had touched his warped nature. Nor had he any intention of committing suicide. He had the passports which he had secured a year before in readiness for such a step (he had kept that clerical uniform of his by him all that time) and was ready at a moment's notice to leave the country. His tickets were in his pocket, and when he despatched the district messenger to Scotland Yard he was on his way to Waterloo station to catch the Havre boat train. The police, he knew, would be watching the station, but he had no fear that they would discover beneath the benign exterior of a country clergyman, the wanted manager of Lyne's Store, even supposing that there was a warrant out for his arrest.