"Quite," replied Milburgh. "A woman comes in at eight o'clock to-morrow morning to cook my breakfast and make the place tidy, but I sleep here by myself. I am very much hurt," he was going on. "You will be hurt much worse," said Tarling dryly and proceeded to the search. It proved to be a disappointing one, for there was no trace of any weapon, and certainly no trace of the little red slips which he had expected to find in Milburgh's possession. For he was not searching for the man who had assailed him, but for the man who had killed Thornton Lyne. He came back to the little sitting-room where Milburgh had been left with the Inspector and apparently he was unruffled by his failure. "Now, Mr. Milburgh," he said brusquely, "I want to ask you: Have you ever seen a piece of paper like this before?" He took a slip from his pocket and spread it on the table. Milburgh looked hard at the Chinese characters on the crimson square, and then nodded. "You have?" said Tarling in surprise. "Yes, sir," said Mr. Milburgh complacently. "I should be telling an untruth if I said I had not. Nothing is more repugnant to me than to deceive anybody." "That I can imagine," said Tarling. "I am sorry you are sarcastic, Mr. Tarling," said the reproachful Milburgh, "but I assure you that I hate and loathe an untruth." "Where have you seen these papers?" "On Mr. Lyne's desk," was the surprising answer "On Lyne's desk?" Milburgh nodded. "The late Mr. Thornton Lyne," he said, "came back from the East with a great number of curios, and amongst them were a number of slips of paper covered with Chinese characters similar to this. I do not understand Chinese," he said, "because I have never had occasion to go to China. The characters may have been different one from the other, but to my unsophisticated eye they all look alike." "You've seen these slips on Lyne's desk?" said Tarling. "Then why did you not tell the police before? You know that the police attach a great deal of importance to the discovery of one of these things in the dead man's pocket?" Mr. Milburgh nodded. "It is perfectly true that I did not mention the fact to the police," he said, "but you understand Mr. Tarling that I was very much upset by the sad occurrence, which drove everything else out of my mind. It would have been quite possible that you would have found one or two of these strange inscriptions in this very house." He smiled in the detective's face. "Mr. Lyne was very fond of distributing the curios he brought from the East to his friends," he went on. "He gave me that dagger you see hanging on the wall, which he bought at some outlandish place in his travels. He may have given me a sample of these slips. I remember his telling me a story about them, which I cannot for the moment recall."